The Capital of Photography Atnaujinta: 2011-03-08 13:16:42

The history of photography in Kaunas began in the early 1860s. In 1862, there were two photo studios in the city already. Nevertheless, it was during the interwar that Kaunas became the true center of Lithuanian photography and other cultural or artistic spheres.

In 1925, the first-ever Lithuanian organization uniting professional photographers working in studios was established in Kaunas. In 1932, when Kaunas was the provisional capital of Lithuania, the Union of Amateur Photographers was formed here, later changing the name to the Amateur Photographers' Association and beginning wide-spanning and well-organized activities of Lithuanian photographers. The association also published the journal "Amateur Photographer" and a Lithuanian version of monthly Viennese journal "Gallery".

The first exhibition of amateur photographers' works was held in Kaunas in 1933, while 1938 saw the openings of four expositions by Lithuanian photographers and one international exhibition with participating photography artists from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the USA, the Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland and Hungary; catalogues from all the exhibitions were released.

In 1932, soon after the registration of the Amateur Photographers' Association, one of its founders, photographer, journalist and writer Petras Babickas, held the first ever personal photo exhibition in Lithuania. It was opened in Kaunas and instigated some of the first articles on theories and critique of photography: Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas published "Is photo – art?", while "Lietuvos aidas" printed reviews by Halina Kairiūkštytė-Jacinienė and Antanas Rūkštelė.

There was yet another organization of photographers functioning during the interwar – in 1935, a section of photographers was established at the Union of Lithuanian Surveyors and Culture Technicians. It also organized exhibitions, published exhibition catalogues, held photography contests, opened the first portable photography exhibition which visited many Lithuanian cities and towns.

After the second world war, the aforementioned photography organizations disbanded, while the Soviet occupation interrupted the steady development of Lithuanian photography: after the war, only propaganda photography, matching the ideology of the time, was officially recognized.

Nevertheless, even in those years of stagnation in photography, there still were cases of interesting creative explorations in Kaunas. Povilas Karpavičius continued to experiment with technologies of photography, working on creative, theoretical and educational activities in photography since the interwar period. Furthermore, the evolution of Lithuanian photography as an art was halted by Soviet occupation only for a relatively brief period of time. In the 1960s, a new creative outburst initiated a long-lasting Rennaisance in Lithuanian photography. An important role in the rebirth of Lithuanian fine art photography fell on the photo artists of Kaunas, who together with colleagues from Vilnius formed the most important features of the then resurgent Lithuanian photography. For at least a couple of decades, those features dominated the works of photography not just in Kaunas but in the entire country as well.

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The extension and development of trends that first emerged in the 1960s are observable in the works by artists from Kaunas who made a significant contribution to the evolution of Lithuanian photography in later decades. One of the most famous upholders of the deep-rooted traditions of Lithuanian photography is Romualdas Požerskis, the winner of the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize and a lecturer at Vytautas Magnus University.

Whereas the Kaunas of the interwar and the Soviet era was a photography hot spot in the context of Lithuania, after the restoration of independence the city gained fame in the international photography scene: local photographers and photography theoreticians finally had an opportunity to present their works and improve in Western countries, while Kaunas in turn became even more open to foreign authors.

Every year Kaunas hosts the international photography festival "Kaunas Photo", filling up most of the exhibition spaces in the city with the works of recognized and up-and-coming foreign photographers.

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After the uproar of the festival, the life of fine art photography in Kaunas does not stop. Exhibitions of classic art photography are frequently open at the "Fujifilm" photo gallery, while the all-year-round open F gallery allows its visitors to enjoy works of modern photography. Fans of not just photography but visual arts in general are welcome at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, which provides an exceptional opportunity to see photos by perhaps the most famous Lithuanian artist, M. K. Čiurlionis. Walking and exploring photo exhibitions is more pleasant when one is aware that the Kaunas Old Town, just a few blocks away, was the location of numerous studios where classic Lithuanian photography artists worked.

*More about this topic is available in the article "Kaunas in the maps of Lithuanian and world photography" by Dr. Tomas Pabedinskas in the publication “Revelations of Kaunas”, 2009 (Kaunas: VMU).