SUTKUS, Antanas - Planet Lithuania

"Antanas SUTKUS is rightly considered the Eastern European counterpart to Henri CARTIER-BRESSON for his humanistic photography.
His book 'Lietuvos Zmones' (engl.: People of Lithuania) is one of the classics of this genre and has been created since 1959 as a project name in his photographs. Nevertheless, it took until 2015, his work was published under this title in a phot book - and another three years, until the publisher Steidl published an affordable, four-language (!) 'Trade Edition'. Also bookss' title is well chosen: the 'Planet Lithuania' corresponded to SUTKUS' Parallel-Universe, where he found all what's necessary for photography. SUTKUS, my Local Hero." (© Richard G. Sporleder)
"Antanas SUTKUS (b. 1939) ranks among Europe's great humanist photographers.
Although he lived and worked in occupied Lithuania on the periphery of the Soviet Empire, he profoundly influenced Soviet photography in terms of form and content.
SUTKUS developed his visual language in the 1960s, establishing the foundation for the Lithuanian school of photography. He was interested in absolutely everything: children, lovers and the elderly, modernity and tradition, joy and painful farewells, nature and the city.

Antanas SUTKUS' photographs invariably revolve around Lithuania and its people; they were his 'Kosmos' in which he found a place for everything, and he formulated his zest for their lives in his long-term project 'The People of Lithuania'.
Antanas SUTKUS' undertaking was a bold one during the Cold War and under Soviet domination; his pictures were an expression of personal life behind the Iron Curtain." (publisher's note)