Biruta Baumane (6 June 1922 – 21 January 2017) was a Latvian figurative painter,[1] one of the most notable of her generation of 20th century artists who developed the "harsh style" as a variety of Socialist realism that dominated in the late 1950s and 1960s in Latvian art.
[2][3] The daughter of teachers Fricis and Lūcija, she was born Biruta Frīdberga on 6 June 1922 in Kalnamuiža, Tērvete parish, Latvia.
[5] In 1951 she married Latvian sculptor Kārlis Baumanis, with whom she had a daughter Laine Kainaize, also painter.
She was also a lifelong recipient of the State Cultural Foundation Stipend, received the Baltic Assembly award (2002) and the Republic of Latvia Order of the Three Stars (2008) for her creative work and professional achievements.
Her first solo exhibition took place at the Artists’ House in Riga in 1966, but she was already noticed in the First Exhibition of Young Artists of the Latvian SSR in 1956, where the new form of Socialist realism, known as the "harsh style", for the first time in public, was presented by her generation of artists including Edgars Iltners, Indulis Zariņš, Džemma Skulme, Rita Valnere, Boriss Berziņš, Ojārs Ābols.