Full Text of HR1515 096th General Assembly
HR1515 96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 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
| 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
| 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
| 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
| 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?";
| 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
| 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
| 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
| 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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