Antanas Sutkus facts for kids
Antanas Sutkus (born on June 27, 1939) is a famous Lithuanian photographer. He is known for capturing real life moments and people in his pictures.
Sutkus has received many important awards. These include the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts and the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas. He also helped start the Lithuanian Association of Art Photographers and was its president.
Life and Photography Work
Antanas Sutkus was born in a place called Kluoniškiai, in the Kaunas district of Lithuania. This was on June 27, 1939.
He studied journalism at Vilnius University in the late 1950s. At that time, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union. Sutkus felt that the government controlled the news too much. He wanted his camera to show the truth and how people really lived.
Sutkus focused on taking black and white photos of everyday people. He did not photograph the perfect citizens that the government wanted to show. He especially loved photographing children. He felt children had their own special world. He said, "Children have a world with its own laws, rules, its own happiness and sadness." A book of his photos of children was published in 2020. He took a very famous photo of a young boy. This picture showed real feelings, which was different from what the government usually showed.
In 1969, he helped create the Lithuanian Association of Art Photographers. He is well-known for his long-term project, People of Lithuania. He started this project in 1976. It was a way to document how life and people in Lithuania were changing.
Sutkus also had a chance to meet famous French writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1965. They visited Lithuania, and Sutkus took a very special photo of Sartre on the white sand of Nida.
Awards and Recognition
- 1997: Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas
- 2003: Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts
- 2017: Dr. Erich Salomon Award
Exhibitions
- Un Regard Libre, at Le château d’eau, pôle photographique de Toulouse, Toulouse, France, in March and April 2011.
- Nostalgia for Bare Feet, at The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow, in April and May 2016.
Images for kids
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Exhibition of Sutkus's work at Le château d’eau, pôle photographique de Toulouse, France, 2011
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