The Happy
From 11 December 2026 to 30 May 2027, the exhibition “The Happy. Viktors Eglītis and Hilda Vīka. Anšlavs and Vidvuds” will be on view in the left wing galleries of the 2nd floor of the Latvian National Museum of Art (1 Jaņa Rozentāla Square, Riga).
The exhibition is dedicated to the writer and art theorist Viktors Eglītis, his second wife, the painter and writer Hilda Vīka, and Viktors' sons: the writer and painter Anšlavs Eglītis and the musician and lawyer Vidvuds Eglītis.
The Happy is the title of a novel written by Anšlavs Eglītis in 1952. The title contains a certain degree of irony, as well as a sense of nostalgia and melancholy about life in Esslingen, where, after the horrors of war and before embarking on an uncertain future in new host countries, there would never again be as much peace and freedom as there seemed to be in the ostensibly unfree environment of a refugee camp.
Looking at the Eglītis family's life in their apartment on Valdemāra Street in Riga and recalling the “castle guesthouse”, namely the manor building in Inciems, we may say the same about them. Although Viktors Eglītis’ first wife and the mother of both sons, pianist, English and French language teacher, and translator Marija Eglīte (née Stalbova), passed away prematurely, many serious trials still lay ahead, brought by both occupying regimes. Yet at that moment, it could truly be said of Eglītis, Vīka, and the two sons that they were fortunate. Even if everyday life was not always easy or harmonious, it unfolded among books, music, paintings, and conversations, both within the family and among their circles of friends in the streets and homes of Riga in the independent Latvia.
In October 2026, the 120th anniversary of Anšlavs Eglītis’ birth is commemorated. In April 2027, Viktors Eglītis’ 150th anniversary will be observed, while Hilda Vīka’s 130th anniversary will follow in November of the same year. The exhibition presents the story of the Eglītis family and their relatives, with special attention paid to the period spent in close proximity to the actual location of the Latvian National Museum of Art.
The exhibition will feature artworks by Anšlavs Eglītis and Hilda Vīka, drawings by Viktors Eglītis, handwritten poems and selected manuscripts of Anšlavs Eglītis’ literary works. Viktors Eglītis’ connection with Latvian modernists is of particular significance. Having studied at the Penza Art School, where future members of the Riga Artists’ Group later continued their studies during the First World War, Viktors Eglītis considered it his duty to defend Latvian modernism through his writings in the press in the early 1920s. He maintained close friendships with many artists of the younger generation. This aspect will be represented in the exhibition through portraits of Viktors Eglītis and his first wife Marija Stalbova by Jēkabs Kazaks, Konrāds Ubāns, Valdemārs Tone, Romans Suta, and Aleksandra Beļcova. The exhibited artworks will be complemented by photographs and video recordings from the family archive.
The exhibition includes artworks and objects from the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova Museum, the Latvian National Museum of Literature and Music, Dobele Regional Museum, the Misiņš Library of the University of Latvia Library, Zuzāns collection, and private collections.
The exhibition is supported by
