This medal is a part of my Polish medals collection
Visit my
page with the offers, please.
You will find many interesting items related to this subject.
If you are
interested in other medals, related to this subject, click here, please.
This medal has been issued to commemorate the pioneer of the Polish photography, Jan BULHAK, 1876 – 1950.
This medal has been designed by the outstanding Polish medalist, Profs. Jozef Stasinski.
Jan Brunon Bułhak (1876–1950) was a pioneer of photography in Poland and present-day Belarus and Lithuania, and one of the best-known Polish photographers of the early 20th century. A theoretician and philosopher of photography, he was among the most prominent exponents of pictorialism. He is best known for his landscapes and photographs of various places, especially the city of Vilnius (then in Poland, now in Lithuania). He was the founder of the Wilno Photoclub and Polish Photoclub, the predecessors of the modern Union of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF), of which he was an honorary headperson. He is also known as an ethnographer and folklorist.
av. The Jan
Bulhak, 1876-1950
rv. Symbolic
motives; the inscription in Polish; for the extraordinary achievements in the
photography
size
– 108 x 104 mm (ca 4¼” x 4½”))
weight
– 327.40 gr, (11.68 oz)
metal – bronze, authentic patina
Jan Bułhak was born on October 6, 1876 in Ostaszyn (Belarusian: Асташын), near Navahrudak (Belarusian: Навагрудак), Russian Empire (now
Belarus). His parents were Walery Antoni Stanisław Bułhak of Syrokomla and Józefa née Haciska of Roch, both local
landowners in Ostaszyn. In the village of Worończa (Belarusian: Варонча) near Navahrudak, not far from St. Ann's Roman Catholic church
(Belarusian: Касцёл св. Ганны), there are four graves
of Jan Bułhak's ancestors.
In 1888, Jan entered a gymnasium (a pre-Revolution secondary
public school of the Russian Empire) in Wilno (present-day
Vilnius), finishing it in 1897. From 1897 to 1899, he studied literature,
history and philosophy at Jagiellonian University, Kraków,
but did not graduate because of lack of money. Back home, he lived in the
village of Peresieka (Belarusian: Пярэсека) near Minsk, where he inherited a manor after his great-uncle's
death. From there, Bułhak sent his news stories to Wilno newspapers. In 1901,
he married a cousin, Hanna Haciska. After his father's death, he sold the manor
and bought a mansion from the Radziwiłłs in Belitsa,
near Minsk. On April 27, 1906, the couple had a son, Janusz Bułhak,
who would become a composer and a photographer.
Jan Bułhak grew interested in photography quite by chance in
1905, when his wife was given a camera. The same year, he took his first
pictures: portraits, landscapes, environs. In the beginning, he was advised by
Bolesław Ignacy Domeyko, a Navahrudak photographer, who helped him in the
basics of photography.
In 1908, he created a darkroom of his own in Peresieka. That
December, he made his debut and won the main award at a photo competition run
by Życie Ilustrowane ("Illustrated Life"), a weekly
supplement to Kurier Litewski ("Lithuanian Courier").
In 1910, Jan Bułhak participated for the first time in the World
Photo Exhibition in Brussels. He corresponded with the Paris Photoclub and the
French photographers Emil J. Constant Puyo, Robert de la Sizeranne, and Léonard Misonne. Two issues of the Berlin Photographische
Mitteilungen ("Photographic News") in 1910 contained his
pictures. Bułhak sent his pictures and news stories to the Warsaw magazine Ziemi
("Earth") as well as to the Polish Local Lore society. He
published many translations and articles in Polish magazines and inculcated the
aesthetics of Pictorialism in the minds of his readers.
From November 1910, Bułhak regularly contributed his writings on
photography to the monthly Fotograf Warszawski ("Warsaw
Photographer"). He also soon began contributing to Tygodnik Wileński
("Vilnius Weekly") (up to 1939), and Deutscher Almanach ("German
Almanac").
In 1911, Bułhak organized a photo-exhibition in Minsk. He
participated in a photo exhibition in Ciechocinek,
Poland; and received an honorary diploma in the category of artistic portraits
at a contest in Antwerp.
Fotographika really sticks out of the photo books from the rest
due to the solid, print form, manifested not too much in the pictorial and
impressionist styles of photography art, but in layouts of books. In
Fotographika, Bulhak shows that he cares and draws attention through the
definition of photographic reproductions. Fotographika was pioneering for the
conscious consideration of form and quality of photo publications in Poland.
The book shows Jan Bulhak as a person that a father figure to generations of
amazing photography beginners looking to practice and aspired the called
artists, as well as offering interesting contribution to reflection on the
image of the artists.Jan Bulhak could also be considered as a prominent
producer when it came to the concept of self-promotion and entrepreneurial
organization of a photographer's activity.
It was Bułhak's publication in Fotograf Warszawski in
1910 that drew the attention of Ferdynand Ruszczyc, a Polish painter,
printmaker, and a professor at the Fine Arts Department of the Stefan Batory
University (now Vilnius University); and it was Ruszczyc who
helped Bułhak move to Vilnius.
Later, Ruszczyc had an appreciable influence upon him as
photographer. Though Bułhak's views on art, inspired by French aestheticians,
had already formed, Ruszczyc helped to turn the amateur photographer into a
professional: the painter taught him some specific techniques of composition to
perceive nature and architecture.
After this Bułhak studied photography in Dresden,
Germany,
where he received some practical tutoring from the German portrait-painter Hugo Erfurth.
He also visited various Dresden societies, where he became acquainted with the symbolists
and impressionists.
In 1911, Ruszczyc suggested that the Vilnius Magistrate (city
council) should create the position of "city photographer", and
Bułhak was asked to take it. Thus, Bułhak became the Vilnius city photographer,
and photography became his main business.
In 1912, he opened a photographic studio at 12 Portovaya Street,
Vilnius. At the request of the Vilnius Magistrate and in cooperation with the
municipal curator, Bułhak started making a "photographic inventory"
of the city and took pictures of its historic landmarks from 1912 to 1915.
The major part of Bułhak's work is connected with Vilnius and
its surroundings; he also documented the monuments and landscapes of some other
parts of Poland: Warsaw, Kraków, Hrodna, Lublin, and so on. Bułhak sent a series of his photos to the Vestnik
fotografii ("Photo Bulletin", Russian: «Вестник фотографии») magazine, which he co-operated with from 1913 to 1914. In
Bułhak's house in Eliza Orzeszkowa street, a collection of twelve thousand
pictures was stored, most of them taken from 1912 to 1915.
From 1919, with Ruszczyc's help and encouragement, Bułhak
started lecturing on artistic photography at the Fine Arts Department of the
Stefan Batory University; he would continue until 1939.
In 1919, he became one of the founders and the chairman of the Vilnius
Photoclub (Polish: Fotoklub
Wileński) (other sources say that he founded the photoclub and had
headed it since 1927); and headed it until the start of World War II.
He and Marian Dederko were the founders of the Polish Photoclub (Polish:
Fotoklub Polski) in 1929 or 1930.
From 1919 to 1939, Jan Bułhak headed the photographic section
(workshop) of the Fine Arts Department of Stefan Batory University in Vilnius.
From 1935 to 1939, he was one of the editors of the
magazines Przegląd Fotograficzny ("Photographic Review")
and Fotograf Polski ("Polish Photographer").
In 1939, the collection titled Polska w obrazach
fotograficznych Jana Bułhaka ("Poland in Jan Bułhak’s
photographic pictures") contained over 11,000 photos arranged into 158
subject albums: Vilnius, Kresy, Volhynia, Lviv,
Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Pomerania, Gdańsk, Nowogródek
Voivodeship and others. By World War II, Bułhak had taken between
40,000 and 100,000 photographs. In 1939, he presented the collection to the
Polish state, but most of these negatives perished during the war.
Under the occupation during World War II, Jan Bułhak together
with his son continued to photograph the destruction of many places in what was
then Poland.
In 1944, after bombardments, Bułhak's studio in Vilnius burned
down; about 30 thousand negatives perished, but some were spared.
After World War II, in July 1945, he resettled in Warsaw. There,
he took about a thousand photographs of destroyed and restored Warsaw, and
about two thousand of the western land attached to Poland.
Though Jan Bułhak's son Janusz studied music at the Vilnius Conservatory, the father taught him photography,
so Janusz joined him in 1940s and all photographs made from 1945 to 1949 are
signed "Jan Bułhak and son".
In 1946, in Warsaw, with help from Stanisław Lorentz, the director of Muzeum
Narodowe w Warszawie (the National Museum), the first postwar
exhibition by Jan Bułhak took place: Warszawa 1945 roku w obrazach
fotograficznych Jana Bułhaka ("Warsaw of 1945 in Jan Bułhak's
Photographic Images").
In 1946, he and Leonard Sempoliński became founders of the
revived Union of Polish Pictorialists (Polish:
Związek Polskich Artystów Fotografików), the
successor to the Polish Photoclub, and headed it until his death. His member
card was number 1.
Bułhak took part in more than 170 international exhibitions, and
received a number of high awards. For his photograph titled Radość
życia ("Joy of Life"), which shows a shaded room with sun
rays entering, he received the Golden Medal at the International Photographic
Show (Polish: X
Międzynarodowy Salon Fotografii Artystycznej) in Warsaw in 1937.
He died suddenly in Giżycko
during a photographic excursion on February 4, 1950.
Jan Bułhak became famous and popular for his pictures of Vilnius
and its vicinity, and other towns and countryside of what is now Lithuania. In
the words of Tomas Venclova:
Bułhak's portrayal of Vilnius and its
environs is not just documentary: reminiscent of impressionist paintings, his
valuable artistic photographs reflect the particular aura of the Old Town and
its surrounding landscape. His image of the city has survived in the
consciousness of several generations and has become one of the city's myths.
In the estimation of Laimonas Briedis:
[Bułhak] spoke of and, in his mesmerising
black-and-white prints, attempted to capture [Wilno's] sinuous nature. Bułhak
placed the city onto the fluid landscape of a human soul, and made it a challenge
to the hardened, familiar parameters of European time and space.
Bułhak wrote a number of books on the technique and art of
photography, memoirs of Ferdynand Ruszczyc (1939), and also some poems and
short stories. He published a series of albums, Wędrówki fotografa ("Photographer's
Travels") (I–IX, 1931–1936). His photographs are used to illustrate a city
guidebook by Juliusz Kłos, a book about Wilno by Jerzy Remer, and other
publications.
Jan Bułhak's creativity had a great influence on the development
of Lithuanian art photography. Practically all of Vilnius pictorialists adopted
his views on art. This influence helped advance photography in the Vilnius
area, Western Belarus, and all of Poland.
Photographs by Jan Bułhak are in many Polish institutions,
including the National Museum in Warsaw, the Warsaw
Institute of Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts in Łódź, the National Library of Poland, and the Walery
Rzewuski Museum of History of Photography in Kraków. Some photographs are in the
collections of the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Iris & B.
Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University
(California).
There are four nations that consider Jan Bułhak an outstanding
person of their own: Poland (he was from a Polish family), Belarus(he was born
and lived in the Belarusian land for some time), Lithuania (he long lived and
worked in Vilnius), and Russia (whose empire encompassed the former three).
Digital Collections
In October 2013, the University at Buffalo Libraries announced
the Jan Bulhak
Collection. This digital collection consists of 116 of Bulhak's
photographs, mainly from Warsaw, Kraków and the Kresy region. Originally, the
collection of photographs was donated to the Polish Room at the University at Buffalo in 1955 by John M.
Walczak. The Jan Bulhak Collection was also integrated into the history mapping
website Historypin.