Tadeusz Dowgird


Tadas Daugirdas was a Lithuanian painter, nobleman of the Łabędź coat of arms.
In 1869, Tadas Daugirdas took his early studies in Vilnius. For a short while, between 1870 and 1872, he went to live in St. Petersburg, where he continued to study, to later move to Munich for four years, and deepened his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts therein. In 1882, Tadas took part in the Courland Literature and Art Society. The year 1905 marked the beginning of his political career, when he joined the Lithuanian Seimas, while being a conservator at the Kaunas City Museum. He became its director in 1909.
In the years of 1910 and 1914, Tadas Daugirdas was a major player in running the Lithuanian Art Society's exhibitions. During the First World War, he continued to guard the museum in Kaunas, while writing a detailed diary during Germany's occupation of the Baltics. Published articles in Lithuanian newspapers. In 1917, Daugirdas participated in the commission that designed the Lithuanian flag, with his plans for the colour yellow to join the triband being accepted, together with its red and green colour bands. In 1919, in his final year, he became the Chairman of the State Archaeological Commission. In February of that same year, prototypes created by Tadas Daugirdas and Kazimieras Šimonis were chosen to be published for the first collection of Lithuanian postage stamps, printed in Berlin.