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A big portrait of Mykolas Biržiška, a prominent figure in the interwar Republic of Lithuania, one of the 20 signatories to sign the 1918 Act of Independence and important member of Los Angeles Lithuanian community, was unveiled in Los Angeles on October 5, 2019. The piece, designed and made up of 1,500 letters by Lithuanian artist Jolita Vaitkutė, dons a wall on St Casimir School in Los Angeles, one of the oldest Lithuanian school in the United States that is celebrating its 70th Anniversary in 2019. It is also where Biržiška taught Lithuanian history.

After Lithuania was overrun by the Red Army in 1944, Biržiška fled to West Germany and, in 1949, emigrated to the US. He spent the last decade of his life in Los Angeles.

“We hope that this modern portrait will inspire all the Lithuanians in this Lithuanian island in Los Angeles to come together, to follow Biržiška's example and continue the work he started to benefit Lithuania,” said Agnė Gurevičienė, the Acting Consul-General in Los Angeles.

The portrait of M. Biržiška has been registered as the largest letters portrait record by Lithuanian record registration agency FACTUM.

Biržiška passed away in 1962 and was buried in Los Angeles, but in 2018, as Lithuania was celebrating the centenary of its statehood, the remains were brought back and interred in the Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius.

The project is partly financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania.