Jānis Kalmīte (2 March 1907, Kauguri parish (now Valmiera Municipality) - 3 July 1996, USA) was a Latvian expressionist painter and among the best-known artists in the Latvian post-World War II diaspora community. His name is associated with the development of a singular theme – the rija. Rijas, or threshing barns, were historically among the oldest structures on the traditional Latvian homestead.Kundziņš, Pauls, Latvju sēta (The Latvian Farmstead) (1974). Sundyberg, Sweden: Daugava, p. 230. Throughout his half-century of exile from Latvia, Kalmīte transformed the rija into an artistic symbol for the persistence of Latvian ethnic culture in the face of invasion and occupation by foreign powers.Sildegs, Arnolds, “In Memoriam,” in American Latvian Artists Association, (2001). United States of America: American Latvian Artists Association, Inc. p. 15.
