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| 1 | HOUSE RESOLUTION
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| 2 | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of | ||||||
| 3 | Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of Janina | ||||||
| 4 | Monkute Marks of Chicago, who passed away on November 13, 2010; | ||||||
| 5 | and
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| 6 | WHEREAS, She was born in 1923 to a railroad worker's family | ||||||
| 7 | in Radviliskis, Lithuania; in 1939, her family moved to | ||||||
| 8 | Kedainiai where she became a child actress and studied drama at | ||||||
| 9 | the National Theater of Kaunas; in 1944, she was separated from | ||||||
| 10 | her parents and sent to refugee camps in Czechoslovakia; there, | ||||||
| 11 | she married a friend, Martynas Nagys; after the Allied bombing | ||||||
| 12 | of Dresden, they went to Austria and worked as laborers in a | ||||||
| 13 | sanatorium for German soldiers until the end of the war; and
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| 14 | WHEREAS, After three years, Mrs. Marks learned that her | ||||||
| 15 | sister was living in Freiburg, Germany, and moved to join her; | ||||||
| 16 | she enrolled in a postwar art school run by Lithuanian refugee | ||||||
| 17 | artists and studied drawing, painting, and weaving; in 1949, | ||||||
| 18 | she immigrated to Kennebunkport, Maine, with her husband and | ||||||
| 19 | young son, Sigi, under sponsorship of the Franciscan Fathers; | ||||||
| 20 | she left Maine for Chicago, where she found friends from | ||||||
| 21 | Lithuania forming the Lithuanian Theater Company; and
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| 22 | WHEREAS, In Chicago, her marriage to Nagys ended in | ||||||
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| 1 | divorce; shortly thereafter, she met and fell in love with a | ||||||
| 2 | jeweler, Ira Marks and they married in 1953, raising three sons | ||||||
| 3 | of their own, along with Sigi Nagys; once settled in Chicago's | ||||||
| 4 | Hyde Park neighborhood, Mrs. Marks returned to art, taking | ||||||
| 5 | classes and becoming an active member at the Hyde Park Art | ||||||
| 6 | Center; and
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| 7 | WHEREAS, Later, she became one of the leaders of the | ||||||
| 8 | Lithuanian Woman Artists Association in Chicago; her works were | ||||||
| 9 | shown at the Art Institute of Chicago, the North Shore Art | ||||||
| 10 | League of Winnetka, the Dunes Arts Foundation of Michigan City, | ||||||
| 11 | the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, and the Lithuanian | ||||||
| 12 | Museum of Art in Lemont; in 1970, after several critics | ||||||
| 13 | suggested her paintings would make splendid tapestries, she | ||||||
| 14 | returned to weaving; and | ||||||
| 15 | WHEREAS, When her husband developed symptoms of | ||||||
| 16 | Alzheimer's disease, she weaved a series of tapestries in rich, | ||||||
| 17 | dark colors that touched on themes of sadness and isolation | ||||||
| 18 | with titles like "Watching and Waiting" and "Why Can't I Fly?";
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| 19 | after her husband died in 2000, she focused her energy on | ||||||
| 20 | opening a museum and transferring all her work to Lithuania; in | ||||||
| 21 | October of 2001, she traveled to Lithuania for the grand | ||||||
| 22 | opening of the Janina Monkute Marks Museum; and
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| 23 | WHEREAS, Janina Monkute Marks is survived by her four sons, | ||||||
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| 1 | Sigi Nagys, and Daniel, Peter, and Paul Marks; and her 10 | ||||||
| 2 | grandchildren; therefore, be it
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| 3 | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | ||||||
| 4 | NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | ||||||
| 5 | mourn, along with her family and friends, the passing of Janina | ||||||
| 6 | Monkute Marks; and be it further
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| 7 | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | ||||||
| 8 | presented to the family of Janina Monkute Marks as a symbol of | ||||||
| 9 | our sincere sympathy.
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