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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of Janina
4Monkute Marks of Chicago, who passed away on November 13, 2010;
5and
 
6    WHEREAS, She was born in 1923 to a railroad worker's family
7in Radviliskis, Lithuania; in 1939, her family moved to
8Kedainiai where she became a child actress and studied drama at
9the National Theater of Kaunas; in 1944, she was separated from
10her parents and sent to refugee camps in Czechoslovakia; there,
11she married a friend, Martynas Nagys; after the Allied bombing
12of Dresden, they went to Austria and worked as laborers in a
13sanatorium for German soldiers until the end of the war; and
 
14    WHEREAS, After three years, Mrs. Marks learned that her
15sister was living in Freiburg, Germany, and moved to join her;
16she enrolled in a postwar art school run by Lithuanian refugee
17artists and studied drawing, painting, and weaving; in 1949,
18she immigrated to Kennebunkport, Maine, with her husband and
19young son, Sigi, under sponsorship of the Franciscan Fathers;
20she left Maine for Chicago, where she found friends from
21Lithuania forming the Lithuanian Theater Company; and
 
22    WHEREAS, In Chicago, her marriage to Nagys ended in

 

 

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1divorce; shortly thereafter, she met and fell in love with a
2jeweler, Ira Marks and they married in 1953, raising three sons
3of their own, along with Sigi Nagys; once settled in Chicago's
4Hyde Park neighborhood, Mrs. Marks returned to art, taking
5classes and becoming an active member at the Hyde Park Art
6Center; and
 
7    WHEREAS, Later, she became one of the leaders of the
8Lithuanian Woman Artists Association in Chicago; her works were
9shown at the Art Institute of Chicago, the North Shore Art
10League of Winnetka, the Dunes Arts Foundation of Michigan City,
11the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, and the Lithuanian
12Museum of Art in Lemont; in 1970, after several critics
13suggested her paintings would make splendid tapestries, she
14returned to weaving; and
 
15    WHEREAS, When her husband developed symptoms of
16Alzheimer's disease, she weaved a series of tapestries in rich,
17dark colors that touched on themes of sadness and isolation
18with titles like "Watching and Waiting" and "Why Can't I Fly?";
19after her husband died in 2000, she focused her energy on
20opening a museum and transferring all her work to Lithuania; in
21October of 2001, she traveled to Lithuania for the grand
22opening of the Janina Monkute Marks Museum; and
 
23    WHEREAS, Janina Monkute Marks is survived by her four sons,

 

 

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1Sigi Nagys, and Daniel, Peter, and Paul Marks; and her 10
2grandchildren; therefore, be it
 
3    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
4NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
5mourn, along with her family and friends, the passing of Janina
6Monkute Marks; and be it further
 
7    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
8presented to the family of Janina Monkute Marks as a symbol of
9our sincere sympathy.