Publisher's Synopsis
This book accompanies the exhibition Lithuanian Portraits, which was recently shown in theWhite Space Gallery in London and Signs of Time by Gallery.Photographer.ru. in Moscow. Antanas Sutkus, a master of monochrome documentary photography, has had a major influence on the development of photography in the Baltic. His lucid and extraordinary images of everyday events in his Lithuanian homeland have been compared to the humanistic approach of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Andre Kertesz. Sutkuss body of work bears witness to the countrys subjection to Soviet rule, presenting a visual history of Communism in an objective but humanistic documentary style. Throughout, it is the daily trials of ordinary Lithuanians from rural villages that tell the story. Beyond recording events, Sutkuss keen eye finds history in human faces. Treading a delicate path that is rooted in care for his subjects, the photographer manages to avoid sentimentality in recording the passage of being into life and towards death. Filled with romance, beauty and sadness, they move beyond photographic realism like stills from an unmade film. His stated aim is to make an attempt at drawing a psychological portrait of contemporary man. He continues future generations will judge our way of life, our culture and our inner world on the basis of photographs.
