The Vilnius Art School for Children and Youth, the first independent private art educational institution in Lithuania, was created by Jūratė Stauskaitė in 1991.

Over its 25 years of history, the school has turned become a versatile and innovative artistic education resource where everyone gets a chance to express their individuality through freedom of expression and creativity, which are important in all professions.

Since 1991 several thousand pupils have attended and completed school programs. School staff have published various teaching aids and textbooks for other schools. The school has taken part in numerous artistic educational initiatives and charity events held by the Vilnius municipality and state authorities, and remains true to its main objective: to raise creative members of society.

The Vejas art gallery of the Vilnius Children and Youth is one of the school’s most important activities. Set up with the Vilnius municipality in 2004, the gallery holds interesting and significant for children as well as for famous professional artists exhibitions, national and international workshops, festivals and other events. The gallery is the only educational facility of its type in the Baltics and maintains close ties of cooperation with educators in Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Iceland, Poland, the USA, Germany, Belgium and other countries.

This year the gallery is expanding its activities to aid more initiatives targeting the public. The gallery plans to:

–get gifted children from disadvantaged families and orphanages and disabled children involved;
–continue work with children in hospitals;
–continue decorating hospitals and care institutions with children’s works;
–organize educational art events for residents in remote areas;
–use aesthethic accents to adorn unattended areas of the city (deserted building sites, courtyards, etc)

Further information available at
www.vaikugalerija.lt, www.dailesmokykla.lt.

The first step towards the implementation of outreach plans is to raise funds to support gifted children from disadvantaged families and care institutions. To this end we are holding an auction of artwork by children. The auction will offer a wide range of works by Vilnius Art School pupils. The works are in various media using different techniques and cover a variety of topics. We appreciate your support and participation at the auction.

Jūratė Stauskaitė, artist, director, Vilnius Art School for Children and Youth and Vejas gallery