On August 8 of this year, graphic artist and painter Benno Tālivalds passed away, the portal “Delfi” is informed by the chairman of the Latvian Artists’ Union Igors Dobičins.
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Farewell to the artist will take place on August 14, at 14.00, in the small hall of the Riga Cremation Center.
The life of the artist Benno Tālivalds began in the context of the tragic events of the world, during the Second World War, when Latvia was in the occupation zones of the USSR and the Third Reich of Germany. In the autumn of 1944, as USSR troops approached, Benno Tālivalds’ family was forced to flee to Germany as a result of repression against the civilian population. After the end of the Second World War, Benno Tālivalds’ family found themselves in the “Valka” temporary accommodation camp for Latvian “displaced persons” (in the US occupation zone, Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany). In 1948, when the people in the camps began to emigrate to their new homelands, Benno Tālivalds went to the United States with his family.
Benno Tālivalds studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Publicity and Print Design (USA, 1952-1956), whose creative atmosphere promoted the acquisition of knowledge in graphic design and formed the artist’s humane, active, coexistence vision in art. After graduating, Benno Tālivalds’ creative life was related to his chosen specialty. The artist created design graphics and publicity materials for Playboy, working in its Design Department (1964-1980). The artist spent many years working for the agency of the architect Tom Zurowski in Chicago, where he worked as a graphic artist and cultivated the 20th century. In the 1970s and 1980s, the visualization of popular projects in authoring techniques (pencil, colored pencil, crayons, felt-tip pen on paper), as well as participated in the organization of marketing and corporate events (1981-1997).
Benno Tālivalds also worked creatively to create large-scale ironic, associative drawings as a condemnatory reference to ethnic violence against civilians around the world, such as the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in the United States. As well as in the author’s technique, the artist created symbolic and surreal cycles of work in the strict postmodernist style: “Modern Gothic”, “Horizons of Thought” (21st century).
In 2002, the artist returned to Latvia. Worked in Jūrmala and started the work cycle “Models”, drawing the figure of a woman from nature and stylistically interpreting the depiction of the character of the model.
Benno Tālivalds has participated in exhibitions since 1953, including in creative exhibitions organized by the American Association of Latvian Artists (ALMA, a member since 1994). Benno Tālivalds together with other Latvian diaspora artists participated in the 2nd General Latvian Art Exhibition (LNMM, 1998), as well as later in the World Latvian Art Center (Cēsis, 2018). Solo exhibitions were held in Grandrapida (USA, 1957), Jūrmala (2007, 2014), Bauska (2014).
Benno Tālivalds has been a member of the Latvian Artists’ Union (LMS) since 2007.
The artist’s works are in the Jurmala Museum, the World Latvian Art Center (Cesis), as well as in other museums and private collections.
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