Biography
Antanas Sutkus is undoubtedly one of the most significant founders and creators of the Lithuanian school of photography. Born in 1939 in Kluoniškė, Kaunas County, he began taking photographs at an early age. While studying journalism at Vilnius University, he worked as a photo correspondent for the newspaper Literature and Art and later for the magazine Tarybinė moteris (Soviet Woman) from 1959 onwards. Photography historian Margarita Matulytė states that in the 1950s, Sutkus was a photographer without precedent, untouched by the influence of other photographers. At the time, creative photography had not yet recovered in Lithuania, whose development was interrupted by the Second World War. Sutkus’s worldview and work were initially influenced not by photography but by other cultural spheres, primarily the literature of Lithuanian and foreign writers and the philosophy of existentialism. In the 1960s, Sutkus and a group of like-minded colleagues (Romualdas Rakauskas, Aleksandras Macijauskas, Algimantas Kunčius, and others) formed the Lithuanian School of Photography, a distinct humanistic photography style.
In 1969, he founded the Lithuanian Society of Photographic Art (since 1989, the Lithuanian Photographers’ Association) and led it with unwavering dedication until 2009, providing unparalleled institutional support to humanistic photography in Lithuania.
Sutkus’ work is firmly rooted in the international trend of humanistic photography, celebrating the essence of humanity, upholding the belief in the universality of humanistic values, and capturing the fundamental experiences of the human condition. The Lithuanian author’s reportage style, which involves capturing moments of everyday life, ordinary people, and combining the intuitive capture of an expressive memento with a broader, philosophical meaning in a single frame, aligns him with the international trend of humanistic photography.
Tomas Pabedinskas
Kaunas Modern Art Foundation