Vilnius through the lens of different epochs at the Vilnius Picture Gallery of the LNMA

October 7, at 5.30 pm, the Vilnius Picture Gallery of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA) opens three exhibitions spanning 19th-century and modern-dayVilnius through photographic images.  

A couple of years ago, a singular find – the Vilnius Album by the 19th century photographer Wilhelm Zacharczyk – entered the collection of the LNMA, becoming the largest copy of the photographer’s album safeguarded in Lithuania. The images created a century and a half ago are now presented by the exhibition Bright City, Dark Times. Vilnius Through the Lens of 19th-Century Photographer Wilhelm Zacharczyk. Zacharczyk’s camera captured the contrasts of the capital’s history, presenting it as an amalgam of European-city aspirations and provincial mundane life, its luminous cityscapes and the shadows of the tsarist oppression. 

Nineteenth-century Vilnius: the bright city begging to protect its identity in the times of darkness 

According to the curator of the exhibition Dainius Junevičius, Zacharczyk was among the pioneer photographers who started capturing Vilnius on camera. 

“The exhibition presents a unique and highly rare collection of the early photographic images of Vilnius. Zacharczyk, presumably, was the third photographer who embarked on recording views of the city and its environs, however, in Lithuania, we have only a few images by the two earlier chroniclers of Vilnius, Abdon Korzon and Albert Sweiykowski. Thus, the acquisition of the album by Zacharczyk by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art is an immense enrichment of the collection of the early Lithuanian photography. I hope that this event will establish Zacharczyk, currently a figure mainly known to the historians of photography, in the popular consciousness as one of the most excelling 19th-century photographers of Vilnius scenery,” Dainius Junevičius says. 

In Zacharczyk’s images, in the words of the co-curator Margarita Matulytė, we encounter not only the views of Vilnius of exquisite beauty; they evoke also the historic memory of oppression, reminding also of our present-day duty to maintain the identity of the city and the state. 

“Wilhelm Zacharczyk created an impressive picture of a bright city at the times of darkness for Vilnius, thus it is important that we not only follow in the footsteps of the photographer and admire the places discovered by him through his eyes, but keep in mind the historical context – the russian colonial policy that aimed at the russification of the occupied country. With the ongoing war by the terrorist russia against Ukraine on our doorstep, these lessons of history ring with extra gravity: we must guard the identity of our state and its capital – the city of light.    

Alongside the scenes of 19th-century Vilnius, on display at the gallery are the images by contemporary artists, as a contemporary cultural context for the historical visions. 

Dovilė Dagienė in her exhibition Here Then, There Now: Location – Vilnius communicates the passage of time by marrying the ideas from the field of astrophysics and traditional black-and-white photography. Mindaugas Meškauskas in his exhibition “I am a Vilnius Citizen”, tackles the problem of the real identity of this city and its citizens. Are we simply born as Vilnius citizens, or do we each select an identity of our own? 

The sunlight between a second and infinity in Dovilė Dagienė’s photography

Back in the 19th century, Wilhelm Zacharczyk recorded sunspots from the Observatory of Vilnius University. Today the artist Dovilė Dagienė extends the theme in her own way by her explorations of the passage of time through the travel of light. 

“The time it takes for the sunlight to reach Earth is eight minutes. This fragment of time has become the basis of my creative process: I leave exactly this interval between two expositions. Thus, a single image records not only two distinct moments, but also light travel that links our mundane experience to the cosmic scale. It is coincidental that the beginning of the series was inspired by Zacharczyk’s images of the “suns” – their meditative mood led me to investigate my own relationship with time and light. It is important to me to explore our perception of time, light and reality. These images combine into one the environment of Vilnius and astronomic distances, the local and remote, the visible and invisible,” the artist introduces the concept of her artistic process. By connecting the fields of science and imagination, she conceives as her themes not only time, but also space, that of Vilnius, while for some of her photos she selects the locations immortalized by Zacharczyk’s camera.   

Mindaugas Meškauskas’s portraits of the citizens of Vilnius as an expression of the freedom of the city 

Over a century and a half ago, Wilhelm Zacharczyk used the wet-collodion process, the technique that enabled him to produce his images of high quality. Today, Mindaugas Meškauskas employs the same process to portray modern citizens of Vilnius. It is a process that requires time and patience, as a person posing before the lens must freeze for a handful seconds. The photographer titled his exhibition on a paraphrase of the famous quote by John F. Kenendy Ich bin ein Berliner, uttered when the city was divided into East and West Berlin.  As sitters for his portraits, Meškauskas invites people of different age groups, walks of life and descent, asking them to answer a seemingly simple question “Are you a Vilnius citizen?”. By doing so he invites them to revisit the question of the true identity of this city. 

“This exhibition is not about Vilnius citizens in the past, but about contemporary choices of being one. These portraits are like testimonies of individual’s belonging to the city, not along the lines of ancestry, but as a personal commitment. I wanted to see and show the town through the eyes of the people, instead of featuring the facades of the buildings. I do not record these images of Vilnius citizens – I meet the people, and we collaboratively create their portrait,” the photographer explains his ideas behind the project.   

The portrait of Vilnius, emerging at the Vilnius Picture Gallery of the LNMA, is woven of travelling light, of artistic experiments and the likenesses of the citizens of contemporary city. Its past and present are the warp and weft of this rich tapestry, the identity of which is alive and needs to be constantly revisited. All the three exhibitions are open for visitors from 7 October 2025 through 8 March 2026. The experience of the display will be augmented by open lectures, tours, workshops and other events posted on the website of the LNMA and social media. 

 

Exhibitions organizer: Vilnius Picture Gallery of the LNMA
Curators: Margarita Matulytė, Dainius Junevičius
Coordinators: Aistė Bimbirytė, Gabija Kasparavičiutė-Kaminskienė
Architect and designer – Povilas Vincentas Jankūnas
Editor – Ieva Puluikienė
Translator – Raminta Bumbulytė

Partners: National Museum of Lithuania, the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Lithuanian State Historical Archives, Library of Vilnius University, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Trakai History Museum, Lithuanian Institute of History, Kaunas College, Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius City Opera  

Information partner – magazine Moteris

Exhibition is financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania