Marija Rima Tūbelaitė

Marija Rima Tūbelytė-Kuhlmann (November 2, 1923 – May 3, 2014) was a Lithuanian painter, writer, poet and daughter of Jadvyga Tūbelienė and Juozas Tūbelis.

Biography Early life in Lithuania (1923–1940) Marija Tūbelytė was born November 2, 1923, in Kaunas, Lithuania to Juozas Tūbelis and Jadvyga Tūbelienė into a family in interwar Lithuania.

As Tūbelytė had a disability due to a difficult birth, she was home schooled. Her mother invited Petras Kalpokas to give Tūbelytė private drawing lessons which left a lasting impression on her.

When she was ten years old, her parents built a house, designed by architect , on the uppermost terrace of the Žaliakalnis hillside. The building now houses the .

Her father died on September 30, 1939.

Fleeing Lithuania (1940–1941) On June 17, 1940, Tūbelytė and her mother fled Lithuania, She earned a Bachelor's degree in art history and in 1945, a Master of Arts in history.

At a foreign students' mixer at Columbia University, Tūbelytė met Kurt Kuhlmann, a graduate student at the university. In 1948, Tūbelytė and Kuhlmann married and they had one child, Peter Kuhlmann, born in New York.

In 1957, Tūbelytė and her family moved from New York to Portland, Oregon. She set up a painting studio at home. In order to make some money from her work, Tūbelytė started painting portraits. The first period of her work in Portland, which lasted for a decade (1957–1967), was very intense. She was inspired by the diverse and stunning landscape of the vast state of Oregon, with its tall dark spruces and cone-shaped mountains.

The successful creative period was crowned in 1963, when she hosted a solo exhibition of her work at the University of Portland.

Taiwan and Japan (1968–1984) In 1968 the family moved to Taiwan, In 1970, Tūbelytė held a personal exhibition at The Magic Touch Gallery in Taipei. She later participated in several group exhibitions in this gallery.

Between 1971 and 1979, the family lived in Kobe, Japan. Tūbelytė began collaborating with Osaka's Katzura Gallery, and from 1974 to 1978 she held exhibitions at art galleries in Kyoto, Wakayama, Hiroshima, Osaka and Nagoya. Her paintings have also been exhibited at the American Club in Tokyo and the Kobe Club. In 1978, the German Cultural Centre in Taiwan organized an exhibition of Marija's paintings. In 1978 she selected 60 of her best paintings and sent them to the United States.

St. Petersburg Beach, Florida (1984–2014) In 1984, Tūbelytė and her family returned to the United States and settled in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida,

After Lithuania regained its independence, Tūbelytė revisited Lithuania in 1991.

Tūbelytė died on May 3, 2014, in St. Petersburg Beach. A memorial service was held for her on October 15, 2014, in the Kaunas Cathedral Basilica. She was buried, beside her father, Juozas Tūbelis, in , Kaunas.

Painting Marija created several hundred paintings during her lifetime, mostly landscapes, still-lives and portraits. Most of them were in the primitivist style.

In 2017, her son donated the bulk of his mother's painting collection to the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Gallery in Kaunas.