ORDINARY FLOWERS – PORTRAITS of WOMEN and CHILDREN from COUNT STANISLAW KAZIMIERZ KOSSAKOWSKI‘S PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION

Count S. K. Kossakowski (1837 06 21-1905 11 04) is considered a unique personality in the history of Lithuanian and Polish photography. An aristocrat with the traditional world-view, he was deeply absorbed in photoprints - a democratic invention of the bourgeois culture. Eventhough an amateur, his activity was based on standards of a professional enterprise. Due to his intensive occupation in photography, S. K. Kossakowski managed to accumulate about 8,000 glass negatives throughout a decade, yet, after his death he happened to be completely forgotten, and the enormous collection of photographic plates disappeared without a trace during the First World War.

K. Kossakowski photographed in various places of Lithuania, Belarus and Poland, but mainly in  Warsaw where he lived during winter seasons, and in his native Lithuanian mansion in Vaitkuškis where he used to spend warm months of a year.

Throughout a decade, S. K. Kossakowski had recorded lots of mansion interiors, views of the surrounding area and  local people: members of his family, relatives, teachers, servants, landowners of the Ukmergė district, the catholic clergy, persons of liberal professions, officials of the tsarist administration, the Lithuanian peasants, the Jew artisans, the Romany.

Not a single print has been ever sold. S. K. Kossakowski compiled photos in his albums or used to make gifts to his relatives, friends and servants. Some of these prints remained in his family archives, they can also be found in various memory institutions in Lithuania and neighbouring countries. M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art owns the largest collection of photographs (6148 units) taken by S. K. Kossakowski. The exhibition, however, presents only a small fragment from the whole set – portraits of women and children who had incarnated a superb aesthetic expression and true pattern of character.