The Colour Photography of Mečys Brazaitis at the Lithuanian Embassy in London
8 January – 6 March, 2010. Lithuanian Embassy in London presents the colour photographs of Mečys Brazaitis (1903-1952), a Lithuanian military pilot with the rank of captain, topographer, and photographer, whose photographs take us back to the the end of the 1930s, a period when the first colour photograph methods were established and flourished.
The new tri-pack Kodachrome film was introduced in London in 1935 for colour cinematography, while October 1936 witnessed the appearance of 35 mm Agfacolor transparency film in the market for amateur photography.
The Agfacolor transparency film quickly garnered huge interest from photographers of the time, and in September 1938 the first colour reproduction appeared in the Lithuanian magazine Židinys.
The exhibition by Mečys Brazaitis beautifully shows not only the characteristics of Lithuanian colour photography that reflect the spirit of the times, but also the first signs of a long period of change in photography culture. Despite the fact that at the time the technical capabilities to print a colour image on photography paper did not yet exist, Brazaitis not only carefully studied the technical possibilities of colour photography, but also looked for the best artistic solutions to give the meaning to colour as a component of the photographic image.
After Mečys Brazaitis left Lithuania for the West in the summer of 1944 because of the Soviet invasion, the colour slides were kept safe by his family in Lithuania. In order for his photographic work to be introduced to a wider audience, the heirs gave permission to the Association of Open Society Studies located in Kaunas to promote his work.
The photographs on display, reproduced from digital versions of the photographs, were done in 2006-2007 by scanning the 35 mm Agfacolor positive colour transparencies.
Exhibition presented in collaboration with the Lithuanian Institute, Vilnius, and the Lithuanian Embassy in London. Curated by Valentinas Gilys, chair of the Lithuanian Open Society Association.
The exhibition is open from 8 January until 6 March at the Lithuanian Embassy in London (84 Gloucester Place, W1U 6AU London).
