Stasys Vaitkus ir jo fotografijos Lietuvos dailės muziejuje

LTLietuvos dailės ir Šiaulių „Aušros“ muziejams daug nusipelnęs dailininkas, muziejininkas, savamokslis fotografas, įdomi įvairiapusė asmenybė Stasys Vaitkus jaunajai kartai mažai žinomas ir, deja, nepelnytai primirštas. Vaitkui šiemet gruodžio 28-ąją sukanka 110 metų. Simboliška jį buvo prisiminti Šiauliuose vykusioje konferencijoje „Fotografija Lietuvos muziejuose“ (2017 m. balandžio 20–21 d.), nes būtent šiame mieste Vaitkus pradėjo savo muziejininko karjerą. [Iš straipsnio, p. 65]

ENOn December 28, 2017, we will commemorate the 110 birth anniversary of Stasys Vaitkus, an honourable sculptor, artist, museologist of Lithuanian Art Museum and Šiauliai “Aušros” museum, a self-taught photographer, interesting and versatile personality. He was born in St. Petersburg, in 1919 together with his family moved to Lithuania, studied in Kretinga gymnasium, later – in Kaunas art school, at the same time he took part in expeditions to collect folk art. After he started to work in Šiauliai “Aušros” museum, Vaitkus himself organized expeditions. In his autobiography Vaitkus wrote: “Having travelled Žemaitija (Samogitia) and a part of Aukštaitija (Highlands), fascinated with the abundance of our folk art and seeing it disappearing, from now on I devote a large part of my time to collect different material of folk art for Šiauliai “Aušros” museum”. This experience was also very useful while working in Vilnius museums both in Art Institute Museum (since 1944) and Lithuanian Art Museum (since 1948). For participation in the activity of anti-Soviet organization – Roerich Society, he was exiled to Siberia, Vorkuta, Komi Autonomous Republic, where he spent six years till the spring of 1955. After returning from exile and becoming a photographer of Lithuanian Art Museum, Vaitkus again engaged in folk art, during expeditions he registered disappearing objects and monuments reminding the past of our country. In the photo library of Lithuanian Art Museum the biggest part (over 8,800 units) consists of photo negatives made by Vaikus during 15 years (between 1956 and 1970).The main themes are landscape, farmsteads, their buildings, churches, cemetery, monuments of small architecture, work processes, such as weaving, spinning, splitting of stones, smithery, etc. He took photos for scientific card index as well as slideshows for lectures, registered the restored exhibits of museum before and after restoration and during the time of restoration. Alongside he took photos of the works of professional artists P. Aleksandravičius, A. Gudaitis, J. Kėdainis, M. Katiliūtė, Juozas and Jonas Mikėnai, P. Rimša, L. Strolis, etc. A lot of these photos were used in published albums and monographs, sometimes even not mentioning the photographer’s name. He was keen on sculpture, however, he did not have possibilities to engage in it. Thus the area of his creative expression were pastels and water colours, a part of them is preserved in Lithuanian Art Museum. The ethnographic material collected and captured in photos by Stasys Vaitkus, that is preserved in Šiauliai “Aušros” museum and Lithuanian Art Museum, is unique and in the future it will be useful for researchers of various fields. [From the publication]