The beautiful Art Nouveau building at Alberta Street 12 has the 9th flat, where artist Janis Rozentāls and his family once lived. The flat now has an exhibition which speaks to the Art Nouveau era, the interior of the artist’s studio, and Rozentāls’ creativity in the place where he worked. The flat was visited by many important Latvian and foreign cultural workers from the early 20th century.
Rozentāls, who was a founder of the fine arts in Latvia, lived at the flat from 1904 until 1915 together with his wife, the Finnish singer Elli Forssell. A sub-renter at the flat, in turn, was the outstanding Latvian author Rūdolfs Blaumanis.
The building at Alberta Street 12 was built in 1903 by the architects Konstantīns Pēkšēns and Eižens Laube. Like other buildings along the street, this is one of the most important monuments to Art Nouveau architecture in Rīga.
Visitors can tour the artist’s family living room, children’s room and bedrooms. Some of the fairly unusual wall paintings that were produced by Rozentāls himself have been restored. The rooms are similar to how they were when the artist was alive, because thanks to the family, much of the furniture and household objects were preserved. The artist’s studio was on the second floor of the flat, and when designing the building, Pēkšēns knew that the Rozentāls family would live in the 9th flat. That is why he built the studio in accordance with the artist’s desires. The studio has paintings and drawings by Rozentāls from various eras, as well as work by several of his students, including Oto Skulme, Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš and Jānis Sudmalis.
Blaumanis was a friend and contemporary of Rozentāls, and he lived in the flat as a sub-renter from 1906 until 1908. Blaumanis spent the last years of his life there, and the exhibition includes a room that is dedicated to him. The exhibition offers a look at various aspects of the writer’s creative work, including literature, journalism and the theatre. The museum regularly offers exhibitions, educational cycles, lectures, and other events related to art, architecture and literature.
