Nearly 200 original prints, extremely interesting for their photographic qualities, are on display in an exhibition of the work of Benedykt Henryk Tyszkiewicz, a Polish-Lithuanian aristocrat and photographer. His 19th-century works, for years considered lost, originate from Lithuanian collections.

The Kubicki Stables at the Royal Baths in Warsaw will display nearly 200 original prints, created between 1892 and 1898, until 10 March 2024, depicting the life and work of Tyszkiewicz, as well as Lithuania, Poland and Europe, their societies, customs and cultural heritage. In addition to reportage and snapshots of his travels, the Polish-Lithuanian artist explored the boundaries of photography through a play between the real and the pretend, a joke, and enactment.

Thematically arranged prints present Tyszkiewicz as a rich landowner, traveller (Zakopane, Nice), ethnographer (photographs of Lithuanian peasants, Polish highlanders), portraitist or pictorialist (staged photographs of French actresses).

The exhibition was created in collaboration between the Royal Baths Museum in Warsaw and the Museum of Photography in Šiauliai (Siauliai).

For a long time, it was believed that all his works had been lost, and that what he had created was known only through the accounts of his contemporaries, a few publications in the press and a few surviving photographs. This was enough for Benedict Henryk Tyszkiewicz to find a place in the history of French, Polish and Lithuanian photography.

Several decades ago, his works reappeared in the public space. These included two small collections of his own prints, which were presented in an exhibition at the Nicephore Niepce Museum in France. Another huge collection has appeared in recent years in Lithuania, thanks to the efforts of a married couple of collectors, Gražina and Gediminas Petraitis. It was from this collection, among others, that the photographs presented in the exhibition at the Royal Baths Park came.

Adrian Andrzejewski