[1] Born in Kaunas on 19 November 1908, Arbit Blatas was a precocious talent who began exhibiting in his native country at the age of 15.
[4] His 30 portraits in oil and bronzes are considered a unique document of the painters and sculptors of that dynamic period in 20th-century French painting.
A life-size statue of another close friend and colleague, Jacques Lipchitz, now stands in the garden of the Hotel de Ville.
In Italy, in the ghetto di Venezia in Venice are located two big bas-reliefs: one in memory of the Shoah in general, and the second one dedicated to the Venetian Jews who were deported between 1943 and 1944.
The first edition of this monument was installed in the historic Venetian Ghetto on April 25, 1980, on the occasion of Liberazione, the national holiday celebrating liberation from Benito Mussolini's government.
The distinguished Italian art historian Enzo di Martini wrote of Blatas' Monument of the Holocaust: "In complete contrast to his paintings, these bronzes are hammered and chiselled in anger and tragedy."
His canon of work depicting scenes and characters from "The Threepenny Opera" includes 18 portraits, 10 sculptures, several large canvases and sets of color and black-and-white lithographs.
In 2000 and 2001, respectively, the entire "Threepenny Opera" collection appeared as part of the Kurt Weill Centenary celebrations at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee, and the Leubsdorf Gallery, Hunter College, New York.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Blatas designed scenery and costumes for nine international opera productions in collaboration with his wife, the renowned mezzo-soprano, Regina Resnik, as stage director.
In 1997, the Beacon Hill Gallery, also in New York, presented a retrospective show – the last major exhibition of the artist's work in his lifetime.
Blatas' vivid colours and joie de vivre extends through his entire canon of paintings: landscapes, portraits and still lifes.