Petronėlė Gerlikienė, née Kromelyte (June 19, 1905, Chicago, United States – March 14, 1979, Vilnius, Lithuania), was a Lithuanian painter and textile folk artist. She lived and worked in a farm in Samogitia; after retiring, she moved to Vilnius to live with her son's family. Gerlikiene began creating large-scale tapestries in 1972, paintings in 1976 and began participating in exhibitions in 1974. Petronele Gerlikiene's art has won recognition and numerous prizes in Lithuania and abroad. Life and works Petronele Gerlikiene entered the Lithuanian art scene at quite a venerable age after she retired and was living with her son's family in Vilnius. She started embroidering tapestries of a very large scale; to make them she used different techniques such as embroidery and application. She was fascinated with big trees and used it as a motif for her first tapestries An Oak, A Rowan, A Maple Tree and A Red Tree. About her textile artwork, Man and Woman Petronele said: “I need to have a very translucent yellow background in order to embroider Paradise. Paradise is above the houses and only the thin branches of trees covered in blossoms and fruit support Adam and Eve. Adam is naked and worry-free. His soft and relaxed body, with clearly marked Adam's apple, seems to sway weightlessly in the air. With his hands on the stomach, he moves his toes enjoying Paradise. Eve by his side is interpreted very differently, as a contrast to Adam, she is full of anxiety: Her skirt is so bouffant ... The woman must always be more beautiful than the man. She holds a bouquet of forget-me-nots.” Eve’s body is tense, she is focused and ready--she knows what awaits her". ("Petronele Gerlikiene", LTS, 2005, p. 53.) She was encouraged by her daughter-in-law, who brought pieces of cardboard and paint from her son's (professional painter) studio. Petronele was amazed that she could paint so quickly and effortlessly. She always had a clearly formed idea of the painting, its composition, and combinations of colours in her head. She painted fast, hurrying as if in oblivion, without sketches, dabbing paint directly from the tube, mixing the colours right on the cardboard or canvas. First, with a dry brush, with its stem (“why stroke and daub needlessly”), Petronele would outline the place of the main character. She only used a palette for putting paint tubes on it. Like this, in one fell swoop,