The best works of photographers of Soviet Lithuania

In the 60s of the last century, thanks to young photographers from Lithuania, an unusual and innovative style broke into Soviet photography, which opened a new breath in photography, forever changing the course of its history.

We present to you the most interesting and vivid works of representatives of the Soviet Lithuanian school.

Antanas Sutkus

Photo from the series "People of Lithuania", on which the master of Lithuanian photography worked throughout his life.

In his pictures, random strangers seem to turn into confidential interlocutors of the viewer…

"Marathon on the street", 1959

Antanas Sutkus , 1971

"On the Baltic Sea", 1970 .

Sutkus, according to cultural scientists, created a whole encyclopedia of images of people of that difficult era.

Vitas Lutskus

The works of young Lithuanians were so bright against the background of fairly standard portraits of production strikers, construction cranes, combines in wheat fields, that they immediately won the best places in publications, on exhibition stands, in photo albums.

Vitas Lutskus, the 1960s

Vaclovas Straukas, from the series "The Last Call"

Vaclovas Straukas, from the series "The Last Call"

"The main lyricist of the Lithuanian photography school, the unsurpassed singer of" graces", – the writer Lev Anninsky called Romualdas Rakauskas.

Romualdas Rakauskas, 1960s

Lithuanian photographers were probably the first to show an ordinary peasant, a villager or a worker in such a simple, warm, poetic way.

Romualdas Rakauskas. From the series "Everyday Life of Vilnius" (1960-1965)

Rimantas Dikhavicius went down in the history of Soviet photography as a "born romantic". It was a romantic touch that helped him become the first photographer who somehow miraculously released an edition in the Soviet Union that glorifies female beauty. His photo album was called "Flowers among Flowers" and was presented at the international book Fair in Moscow in 1987. The album was a truly huge success.

Rimantas Dihavicius, "The Sun"

Alexandras Matsiauskas

No less successful were the shots of Matsiauskas about the ordinary life of ordinary people. And his village bazaar revolutionized the minds of a whole generation of photographers of that time.

Alexandras Matsiauskas. From the series "Collective farm market". 1969-1970.

Alexandras Matsiauskas. "Summer", 1982. Photo: Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography