Background
Jan Bułhak was born on October 6, 1876 in Ostaszyn, near Navahrudak, at that time Russian Empire (now Belarus). He was the son of local landowners in Ostaszyn Walery Antoni Stanisław Bułhak of Syrokomla and Józefa née Haciska of Roch.
Bulhak
critic ethnographer folklorist journalist Photographer
Jan Bułhak was born on October 6, 1876 in Ostaszyn, near Navahrudak, at that time Russian Empire (now Belarus). He was the son of local landowners in Ostaszyn Walery Antoni Stanisław Bułhak of Syrokomla and Józefa née Haciska of Roch.
From 1888 till 1897 he studied at Russian classical gymnasium (a pre-Revolution secondary public school of the Russian Empire) in Vilnius. In 1897 he entered Jagiellonian University in Krakow where he studied literature, history and philosophy, but did not graduate because of lack of money. In the beginning, he learnt photography from Bolesław Ignacy Domeyko, a photographer from Navahrudak. Later on, he practiced at the studio of the well-known German photographer Hugo Erfurth (1912).
He returned home from Krakow and for some time lived in the village of Peresieka near Minsk, where he inherited a manor after his great-uncle's death. From there, Bułhak sent his news stories to Vilnius newspapers. In 1901, he married a cousin, Hanna Haciska. After his father's death, he sold the manor and bought a mansion from the Radziwills in Belitsa, near Minsk, Belarus. In 1905, Bułhak became interested in photography, when his wife was given a camera, and began to publish his works in various Polish magazines. In the beginning, he learnt from Bolesław Ignacy Domeyko, a photographer from Navahrudak. In 1908, Bułhak created a darkroom of his own in Peresieka. In December, he made his debut and won the main award at the 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 Ziemia ("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 ("Wilno Weekly") (up to 1939), and Deutscher Almanach ("German Almanac").
In 1910, Bułhak met Ferdynand Ruszczyc, a Polish painter, printmaker, and a professor at the Fine Arts Department of the Vilnius University. Ruszczyc helped Bułhak to 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.
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. In the same year, Bułhak was asked to hold the position of "city photographer" upon Ruszczyc’s suggestion that the Vilnius city council should create the position. 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. Between 1912-19, he specialized in documenting the architecture of Vilnius (at the time located within Polish borders), and later other cities in Poland (e.g. Warsaw, Lublin), surpassing the typical visual document cataloguing method, and occasionally deliberately inclining towards an abstract image (he created 158 albums in total, including Poland in the Photographs of Jan Bułhak / Polska w obrazach fotograficznych Jana Bułhaka).
In 1919-1939, he worked as a pedagogue. He was the head of the Department of Artistic Photography at the Fine Art Faculty of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius (now Vilnius University). During 1920s, he was animating the photographic scene in Poland: he was one of the co-founders and the president of the Vilnius Photo Club (1928) and Polish Photo Club, and after the World War Two – of the Union of Polish Photographers (1947), which in 1952 was re-named as the Union of Artist Photographers of Poland (ZPAF).
He used alternative photographic techniques, such as gum printing and bromography. He created touching portraits and symbolic landscapes, as well as photographed the peasants, continuing the tradition of the 19th century studio photography.
Bułhak continued his friendship with Ferdynand Ruszczyc. In 1930s he was a proponent of the concept of national photography – its goal was to accentuate Polish national identity and character. At that time, Bułhak, just like several other pictorialists in Poland, acquired some compositional techniques from the modernist “new photography.” He was also an amateur of pictorialist photography akin to that represented by the Photo Club de Paris, however sought to adapt it to the Polish specifics and tradition.
Bułhak wrote a number of articles and books on the aesthetics and techniques of photography, as well as tourist photography: Fotografika (1930), Bromide Technique (Technika bromowa, 1933), Aesthetics of Light (Estetyka światła, 1936), and National Photography (Fotografia ojczysta, 1951), which was an attempt to adapt the interwar concept of photography to socialist policies. It may be said that, after the WWII, the only continuator of Bułhak's creative and ideological output was Tadeusz Wański. Paradoxically, the ideas behind pictorialism, deriving from the upper social class, constituted one of the three fundamental currents of socialist realism (1949-1955).
In 1944, after bombardments, Bułhak's studio in Vilnius burned down; about 30 thousand negatives perished, but some were spared.
After the Second World War he moved to Warsaw, where he took photographs of the destroyed city (displayed at the National Museum in 1946) and of the Recovered Territories (e.g. Wrocław). He participated in the exhibition titled Modern Polish Fotografika (Nowoczesna fotografika polska, 1948) where he showed his abstract pieces.
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").
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. Majority of Bułhak's works (including landscapes, images of architectural landmarks, portraits) were burnt during the Second World War.
Evening prayer
Bernardyńska
1914Church of Saint Franciszek from Asyżu
The Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Vilnius
1917Palace in Vilnius
Church in Krakow
Bernardyński corner
1915Castle
Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius
The entrance of the Jagiellonian Library
Harvest
Bohdanów road
1925Wileński corner
1913The Church in Berezwecz (Vilnius region)
1938Saint Kazimierz Church
Vilnius
Warsaw. The old quarter
Quotes from others about the person
Tomas Venclova said: "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."
Laimonas Briedis said: "Bułhak spoke of and, in his mesmerising black-and-white prints, attempted to capture 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."
In 1901, he married a cousin, Hanna Haciska. On April 27, 1906, the couple had a son, Janusz Bułhak, who would become a composer and a photographer.