Solo exhibition by the photographer Antanas Sutkus
Updated 2008-07-20
15 June - 20 July, 2008. The solo exhibition by Lithuania’s most celebrated photographer Antanas Sutkus will open on 15 June in Lensky Gallery, Stow-on-the-Wold in Cotswold.
As leader of the “Great generation” of Lithuanian photographers who made their mark in the 1960s, Sutkus has been a strong influence on subsequent development of photography in Lithuania. His lucid and moving images of everyday life have been compared to the work of the greats of 20th-century photojournalism such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and André Kertész.
Born in Lithuania in 1939, Sutkus started his photographic career as a photojournalist, and since 1969 has been working as an independent photographer based in the capital city Vilnius. He was one of the co-founders and President of the Photography Art Society of Lithuania (PASL), which championed photography as an art form, and is credited with gaining recognition for Lithuanian photographers on the national and international scene. In 2003 Sutkus was awarded Lithuanian National Award for Culture and Arts.
Sutkus’ recent shows include Scottish Parliament, 2006; White Space Gallery and Photo London, 2006; FotoGrafia photography festival, Rome, 2006; Photography Gallery, Paris; Galerie Susanne Albrecht (with Martin Parr), Munich, 2005; PHP, Prague, 2004; Fotografie Forum, Frankfurt am Main, 2003; “Clear Vision: Photographs from F.C. Gundlach’s Collection”, Internationales Haus der Photographie, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, 2002.
Artist’s works are in the collections of Lithuanian Museum of Art, Vilnius; National Library, Paris; Museum of French Photography, Paris; Museum of Photography, Helsinki; International Center of Photography, New York; Institute of Arts, Chicago; Art Museum, Minneapolis; Art Museum, Boston; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm; The Moscow House of Photography.
Sutkus’ main subject is man in all situations and moods. His aim, he has written, is “to make an attempt at drawing a psychological portrait of contemporary man … because future generations will judge our way of life, our culture and our inner world on the basis of photographs.”
This exhibition in the Lensky Gallery presents Sutkus’ most important work, including his series People of Lithuania, an ongoing project begun in 1959, which has a very strong sense of passing time.
Also on display are images from one of his best known series of photographs, documenting the visit of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to Lithuania in the summer of 1965, at the height of the cold war, and their meetings with writers and other intellectuals.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian Institute and Cultural attaché in the UK.
In autumn 2008 Antanas Sutkus comes back to London with his solo exhibition of the portrait photographs.
Cultural attaché inf.
