The past, frozen in a moment yet still brimming with life – such is Encounters in the Last Century. 1963–2000, the new photography album by Algimantas Kunčius, published by the National Museum of Lithuania (compiled by Onutė Butkutė, designed by Vida Ona Kuraitė). This publication offers readers hundreds of photographs that open doors to artists’ studios, behind-the-scenes moments in theatres, gatherings of writers, and the quietest hours of creative work.

The album features a large selection of vintage prints that were showcased during the photographer’s 2019–2020 exhibition at the museum.

“This visual narrative of Lithuanian cultural figures and their surroundings takes us back to another time. It is not merely a collection of individual portraits, but rather a cultural archive that allows us to once again meet the people who shaped and defined our identity,” says photographer Algimantas Kunčius about the album.

A Photographer “From Within”

Algimantas Kunčius captured these photographs over more than three decades while working as a photojournalist for the cultural publications Literatūra ir menas and Kultūros barai, photographing Lithuanian writers, painters, musicians, theatre and film figures of the time.

“I was a complete amateur, with no formal professional training. Before me, Antanas Sutkus and Romualdas Rakauskas had worked there. I inherited the photo lab from Rakauskas—it was set up in the basement of the Writers’ Union building and equipped with very modest, minimal tools,” recalls the photographer.

In her essay published in the album, art historian, photography and art critic, and exhibition curator Dr. Agnė Narušytė emphasizes that Kunčius’s portraits were not studio shots but were taken in everyday settings—while writing, painting, thinking, expecting a child, arriving or departing.

According to Dr. Narušytė, it was precisely because Kunčius was part of the same cultural world that he was able to photograph “from within,” engaging with jazz musicians, composers, conductors, with the friends and students of painting patriarch Antanas Gudaitis, and visiting them in their studios: “Perhaps that is why Kunčius does not need any special tricks to make a portrait compelling. He didn’t even want to catch people off guard or make them tense up and strike a characteristic pose.”

A Perspective Across Eras

Dr. Agnė Narušytė points out that many of the people captured in Algimantas Kunčius’s photographs are no longer with us, making these encounters part of history. Among them is avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, visiting his native village of Semeniškiai with his family, or art historian and museum professional Paulius Galaunė, saying goodbye to his daughter in Vilnius in the rain—she had not been permitted by the authorities to travel to Kaunas. Such images not only reflect deeply personal moments but also become part of our cultural history.

This book is, in a sense, a reconstruction of the 1984 album Encounters, published by Mintis Publishing House, which was heavily censored by Glavlit, the Soviet censorship authority. At the time, creators who were not favored by the Soviet regime were excluded from its pages. Paradoxically, when viewed from today’s perspective, everything appears turned upside down.

As Dr. Agnė Narušytė writes in the album’s annotation:
“Looking at Algimantas’s photo archive, it becomes evident that not all those captured are equally deserving of homage. Some adapted too well or served the Soviet system too eagerly. For instance, the writer, politician, and Stalin Prize laureate Antanas Venclova—photographed by Kunčius on his 60th birthday with a telephoto lens—ended up looking almost ‘concrete,’ like a propaganda monument.”

A Cultural Archive

Algimantas Kunčius printed all of his photographs himself—a fact that further enhances the value of this exceptional collection. His archive, which comprises around 80,000 negatives and 2,600 original prints documenting cultural and artistic figures and events from 1963 to 2000, was donated to the National Museum of Lithuania a few years ago.

“I’m glad that the National Museum of Lithuania, which has long held a valuable collection of Lithuanian photographic heritage, is systematically collecting archives of contemporary photographers as well. This is not only photographic art, but a cultural archive—a source from which today’s art historians, cultural researchers, exhibition curators and others retrieve portraits of creators to bring their stories to life through imagery,” says the photographer.

The photography album Encounters in the Last Century. 1963–2000 by Algimantas Kunčius, published by the National Museum of Lithuania, is now available for purchase in the museum’s online store and on-site ticket offices. The album will be officially presented at the Vilnius Book Fair on February 28 at 12:00 PM, in Conference Hall 1.2. The event will be hosted by Dr. Agnė Narušytė and will feature the album’s author and compiler Algimantas Kunčius, graphic artist Ramunė Antanina Vėliuvienė, photographer Arūnas Baltėnas (LNM), and museum curator Liucija Mikučionytė (LNM).