Henry Salkauskas (6 May 1925 – 31 August 1979) was an Australian printmaker and abstract artist in watercolors, a refugee from Lithuania.
[1] He was aged 15 when, in the Soviet occupation Lithuania, his father was among those rounded up and taken away by the Russians, and was never seen again, later found to have died in the Vorkuta concentration camp in Siberia.
[1] They applied for resettlement and found their way to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on 31 May 1949 by the Skaugum,[1] a Norwegian liner chartered by the IRO.
[1] Having a regular job gave him freedom to experiment with his linocuts and from 1958 silkscreen prints, without the need to create saleable works.
[1] There is also the great tradition of Lithuanian black and white printmaking and the influence of Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung.
[2] He won prizes at local art competitions and his work was shown at exhibitions in Tokyo, Lugarno (Switzerland), Ljubljana (Yugoslavia) and Washington DC, USA.