Jan Bułhak

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.[1] 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").[1][2]

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.[1] 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 ("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.[3]

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.[2]

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.[1][4]

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.[1] 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.

Panorama of the Vilnius Old Town, 1944

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.[2]

In 1919, he became one of the founders and the chairman of the Vilnius Photoclub (Polish: Fotoklub Wileński)[5] (other sources say that he founded the photoclub and had headed it since 1927);[2][6][7] 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[2] or 1930.[4]

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.[1][2] 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.[2]

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.[7]

After World War II, in July 1945, he resettled in Warsaw.[4] 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".[2]

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").[1][4]

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,[4] and headed it until his death. His member card was number 1.[8]

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.[9]

He died suddenly in Giżycko during a photographic excursion on February 4, 1950.