Antanas Sutkus

Silver print. Signed and dated 1965 on the reverse.

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in the Eyes of Antanas Sutkus, Centre Culturelle Français de Vilnius, 1999, illustrated on cover and pp. 26-27 (another edition exhibited)

"J.P. Sartre and S. de Beauvoir in Lithuania. 1965" for the 100th anniversary of Sartre, Centre Culturel Français, Stockholm; House of Literature, Munich, 2005 (another edition exhibited)

Anatanas Sutkus, White Space Gallery, London, 2006 (another edition exhibited)

The Lithuanian School- Western Photography in the USSR, Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow, 2011 (another edition exhibited)

Antanas Sutkus: Um Olhar Livre, Museum Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil, 2012 (another edition exhibited)

Anatanas Sutkus, Pushkin House, London, 2012 (another edition exhibited)

 

Sartre, Liberation (special issue), April 1980, illustrated on the cover

Sartre & Beauvoir: Cinq Jours en Lithuanie, Paris, 2005, ill. on cover

 Catalina Uribe Merino, Por Los Caminos de Sartre, Medellín, 2005, ill. on cover

Anatanas Sutkus: A Retrospective, Vilnius, 2009, pp. 125-126

Excellent condition. Very minor wear to lower edge.
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Antanas Sutkus is considered to be the most prominent member of the Lithuanian School of Photography, which occupied an important space between Soviet ideology and Western aesthetics. He was a co-founder of the Lithuanian Union of Photographers in 1969, which was the first of its kind in the USSR and recognised photography as an art form in its own right. Having maintained the leading role in the development of Lithuanian photography, Sutkus was honoured with numerous prizes, ranging from the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas of the 4^thdegree in 1997 to the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize in 2011.

Often compared to the American photographer Robert Frank, Sutkus documented everyday life in Soviet and later post-Soviet Lithuania in a sincere and idiosyncratic manner, combining reportage photography with a fine-art aesthetic. Often portraying subjects ignored by Socialist Realism, such as local fishermen or a school for blind children, Sutkus’ spontaneous snapshots are emotionally charged and contemplative at the same time. His extensive travels and documentations of life in the cities and villages of Lithuania resulted in an archive of 700,000 photographs, that he later titled The Daily Life. His photographs, frequently described as psychological case studies, reveal the way the artist maintained the prevalent system by photographing “accepted” subject matter, yet subverted it with a highly individual and intimate approach to his subjects.  

The presented lot is an iconic image of Jean Paul Sartre’s official one-week visit to Lithuania, together with Simone de Beauvoir, in the summer of 1965. Then 26-year-old Sutkus was appointed as an accompanying photographer to chronicle the high profile visit. Instead of producing a dry, official documentation of the trip, the penetrating gaze of Sutkus’ camera managed to capture the fleeting moments of intimacy between the two writers. Although Sartre and Sutkus barely spoke during the trip, Sutkus’ famous snapshot of Sartre crossing the deserted stretch of land in Nida instantly conjures the existentialist philosophy of the latter. The being and the nothing collapses into one as the figure of the old man leans forward in strong, deliberate motion in unknown direction, shadowed in endless sands, and references Sartre’s assertions on individual existence and free will. This powerful image has since graced covers of numerous publications dedicated to Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as inspiring Roseline Granet’s sculpture Hommage à Jean-Paul Sartre (1987) at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.