About the Foundation Fiore Verde

"Street in Liepaja," by Konrads Ubans (1933)

The Foundation Fiore Verde ("green flower" in Italian) was founded in 1991 by Juris Ubans, a professor of art at the University of Southern Maine, in memory of his late father, Konrads Ubans, a renowned Latvian watercolorist.  Juris Ubans, his two elder brothers and their mother had fled Soviet-occupied Latvia in autumn of 1944, their last chance to do so.  Konrads Ubans lay ill in the hospital with typhus and was not expected to survive.  Although he did recover and lived for another 37 years, contact with his expatriate family was virtually impossible during the Cold War; he met his youngest son again briefly in 1973, but never saw his wife again or older boys again.

With the break up of the Soviet Union, however, it became possible for the family to re-establish ties with their native land.  The Foundation Fiore Verde is "the cultural bridge by which a positive focus of interest, fellowship and educational understanding will be constructed."  It sponsors exchanges between the faculty, staff, and students of the Latvian Academy of Art and the Latvian Museum Association, which comprises seven museums and other cultural institutions in Riga, and their counterparts from the University of Southern Maine in Portland, California State University at Los Angeles, and Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.  The foundation also sponsored the first American exhibit of Konrads Ubans's works, in the art gallery on the Westbrook, Me. campus of the University of New England.

The following biographical sketch of Konrads Ubans and description of the foundation were excerpted and adapted from "The Bridge," a booklet published by the foundation:

Konrads Ubans (1893 - 1981) was a Latvian realist painter who was influenced by the trends of Impressionism, Post Impressionism and Cubism.  He served as assistant director of the Latvian National Museum and professor of painting at the Latvian National Academy of Art.

During the period of Latvian independence (1918-1940), Ubans became a painter of international stature. His paintings were shown widely in Sweden, France, Germany, England and Finland, before Latvia's takeover by the Soviet Union in 1944.

With the disintegration of his native Latvia under Soviet occupation, his work, especially his landscapes, took on even deeper meaning. As the Soviets ravaged the Latvian landscape with pollution and destruction, displaying a blatant disregard for nature, his landscape paintings became an axiom of subtle protest compared to the social realism officially promoted by the Soviets.

His rural and suburban landscapes were able to express the specific charm of his subjects and native land and through them, his reverence for natural order. This quietly allowed the viewers of his paintings to place a special emphasis on the beauty and precious element of Latvia, displaying the harmony of man's delicate relationships with nature in contrast with what was being done by the Soviets. He wanted us to see that nature is our wise old teacher; and in going against these teachings, we imperil our own existence. In a sense, his art, like the tradition of great art before him, was didactic -- teaching people how to live.

The Foundation Fiore Verde was created to foster the exchange of students, faculty, staff, exhibitions, and pedagogical ideas, using the artwork of Konrad Ubans as a springboard. Ubans' paintings enable us to go beyond political divisions and understand the common bond between people and nature. This, combined with a promotion and appreciation of democracy in independent Latvia, a country of people with a proud awareness of tradition and culture, are objectives of the Foundation Fiore Verde.

The foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  For more information:

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