Photo: Tocekas · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mykolo Žilinsko dailės galerija

The largest branch of the Nacionalinis M. K. Čiurlionio dailės muziejus (M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum) holds the Mykolas Žilinskas collection; the gallery is closed for reconstruction.

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. The gallery is closed for reconstruction.

About the museum

The Mykolo Žilinsko dailės galerija (Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery) is a branch of the Nacionalinis M. K. Čiurlionio dailės muziejus in Kaunas. Most of the works on display were donated to Kaunas by the Lithuanian collector Mykolas Žilinskas. Between 1974 and 1988 he handed over 1,683 works of art to the city.

A picture gallery was built on K. Donelaičio gatvė in 1978 for this collection. As the collection kept growing, a larger building was needed, so on 30 June 1989 a new gallery building opened on Nepriklausomybės aikštė (Independence Square); its architects were Eugenijus Miliūnas, Kęstutis Kisielius and Saulius Juškys. In 2020 this postmodern building was entered in the Register of Cultural Property. A sculpture, “Žmogus” (Man), by Petras Mazūras has stood at the entrance since 1991.

The gallery exhibited Ancient Egyptian art, European decorative applied art of the 17th–20th centuries, Italian painting of the 17th–18th centuries, Western European painting of the 19th–20th centuries, and painting and sculpture by Baltic artists of the early 20th century. Three halls were devoted to exhibitions by Lithuanian and foreign artists. The building also housed the Šiuolaikinio meno informacijos centras (Contemporary Art Information Centre), a lecture hall, the “Menapilis” cinema hall and a studio for children's aesthetic education. The gallery is currently closed for reconstruction.