The exhibition “Jan Bułhak: Photograph heartily!”

The exhibition “Jan Bułhak: Photograph heartily!”. The exhibition of works by a prominent photographer of the early 20th century is dedicated to the 140th birth anniversary of the classic of photography and presents photographs stored at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, as well as photo postcards with J. Bułhak’s images from Stanislovas Sajauskas’ private collection.

“My distant, unknown colleagues and friends – photograph heartily!” – this phrase as a testament for the future generations of photographers comes from one of Jan Bułhak’s books.

Jan Brunon Bułhak (1876–1950) is the most prominent Vilnius photographer of the early 20th century. In 1919, on the initiative of a photography artist a department of artistic photography was established at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius, on its basis he set up the first professional school of photography. In 1927, J. Bułhak founded a Society of Vilnius photography amateurs and a Photo Club. In 1945, he repatriated to Poland and having settled in Warsaw established there the Union of Polish Photographers, and headed it untill his death.

Having devoted more than a half of his life to photography, Jan Bułhak was an exceptionally prolific and creative photographer, took part in more than 170 international exhibitions and won numerous awards, wrote over 100 historical, theoretical and publicistic articles, issued monographs on photography theory. It was he who invented a new term fotografika (picturesque photography), which was started to use in order to separate the artistic photography from a scientific, technical and amateur craft.

The largest in amount and most significant collection of Vilnius sights and its art monuments includes images taken before and during the First World War. Possibly, these photographs of high artistic quality were meant specifically for exhibitions. Images of the Vilnius city panorama, buildings, architectural details and interiors from J. Bułhak’s set are presented here alongside with photographs featuring the beauty of natural surroundings, historical castles, mansions, churches in Trakai, Užutrakis, Kreva,Nowogródek, Mir, Nesvizh, and the Vilnius country-side.

The exhibition is complemented by a set of photo postcards housed in the museum and from S. Sajauskas’ private collection. They show the representative images of Vilnius and the Trakai Castle.

Curator of the exhibition Aidas Kulbokas

Exhibition works: 16 09 2016–16 10 2016