Weaving a Silver Web: An Imaginary Sisterhood of Women Photographers in Early 20th Century
The exhibition Silver Girls: Retouched History of Baltic Photography, which took place at the National Gallery of Art (Vilnius) last Spring and was curated by Šelda Puķīte, Indrek Grigor and Agnė Narušytė, has served as a pretext for this presentation. While researching the archives, we noticed the evidence of sisterhood among women photographers. Although we imagine them as lonely figures, our earliest woman photographers joined photographic societies in the 1890s and won recognition at international exhibitions. Women members of the Latvian Photographic Society even formed their own Committee. Artists practicing photography in Kaunas found their community in the Lithuanian Women Artists Society. Understanding the value of supporting each other, women often photographed their closest circles of female friends and relationships. Sisterhood was part of the photographic profession. For example, the stamp “Jurašaitis in Vilnius” conceals the fact that the photographer’s wife Marija and daughters, Elena, Marija and Aleksandra, were retouching the images, or that Aleksandra took over the studio after her father’s death. But also, photographers supported women’s struggle for equality, including the right for women to get included in the political process of creating independent republics.
A group of women from the Women Member’s Committee of the Latvian Photographic Society during the observation of the solar eclipse, 1914. From the collection of the Latvian Museum of Photography
Agnė Narušytė is an art critic, curator and researcher at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, associated professor at the Vilnius Academy of Art, and editor in chief of the weekly 7 meno dienos; she also writes commentaries on culture for Lithuanian National Radio. Narušytė’s authored books include: The Aesthetics of Boredom: Lithuanian Photography 1980–1990 (Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Publishers, 2010), Lithuanian Photography: 1990–2010 (Vilnius: baltos lankos, 2011, in Lithuanian), Camera obscura: The History of Lithuanian Photography 1839–1945 (together with Margarita Matulytė, Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Publishers, 2016, in Lithuanian) and Chronometers: Imagining Time or Chronopolitics, Heterochrony and Experiences of Acceleration in Lithuanian Art (Vilnius Academy of Arts, 2021, in Lithuanian).
Photo by Ramūnas Danisevičius
