Juozas Kamarauskas

Born in the village of Skouradai, in the family of farmers Mykolas Kamarauskas and Ieva Uršulė Sadauskaitė-Kamarauskienė. In addition to Juozas, six more children grew up in the family. Juozas studied in several local church schools. At the age of 10, he started teaching himself to draw. Since 1922 he lived in Vilnius and until 1939, did not have a permanent job. He earned a living by doing odd jobs: he restored and copied paintings of religious content for provincial churches and estates, made various construction projects, drew posters mostly for opposition parties, household genre pictures, ex-librises, compiled Vilnius city plans, drew block layouts, designed postage stamps, banknotes, worked in various institutions. Since 1939 worked as the head of Vilnius in the board of engineer and architect, 1940-1945. – in various educational and cultural institutions in Vilnius. He is buried in the Antakalnis Cemetery.

He was the first artist to record objects of cultural heritage in Lithuania in drawings and sketches. Created about 4,000 graphic and painting works. Some of the most important are the drawings and sketches of the pavements of the 40 streets in the Old Town of Vilnius destroyed during the Second World War, made in 1944-1945. Each building was drawn by the artist from nature, and then, according to the scratched possessions, it was transferred to the street pavements at the appropriate scale. He painted panoramas of Vilnius, Kaunas, Grodno, Trakai and other castles, cities and towns, ancient architectural monuments, also created bookplates, posters, stamps, and restored paintings. The genre of the drawings oscillates between a neo-romantic historical landscape and a precise documentary. His works are owned by the Lithuanian Art Museum (about 400), the Lithuanian National Museum, the Vytautas the Great War Museum, and the Trakai History Museum.

• Illustration — Ruins of the Vilnius Upper Castle • Illustration — Reconstruction of the Kreva Castle • Illustration — Gate of Dawn street