Pranas Domšaitis

Pranas Domšaitis (born Franz Karl Wilhelm Domscheit, 15 August 1880 – 14 November 1965) was a Prussian Lithuanian painter.

Born in Cropiens (now in Guryevsky District), a village in the East Prussia near Königsberg, Domšaitis spent his first 27 years as a farmer. He befriended and travelled with the artist Fritz Ascher from Berlin, who drew a portrait of him in 1919/20. He spent World War I partially on his parents' farm and partially in military service, and then resumed his travels and artistic career. His successful exhibitions in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, and Turkey were disastrously followed by his inclusion in a 1937 exhibition of Degenerate art and the removal of his works from German museums.