The Photography Museum preserves a collection of very rare exhibits – the decorations of old photography pavilions. It consists of eleven large-format canvases painted with various plots, dating back to the first half and the middle of the 20th century.

The most valuable of them were restored in the Pranas Gudynas’ Conservation Centre of the the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in 2019-2021.

From the beginning of the 20th century, there was an increase in the number of professional photographers who founded their photo studios in the cities and towns of Lithuania. Studios used to be established in prestigious places: in the centre, on main streets, near markets. The interior of the photo studio would be quite modest. The photographer usually used one or two decorations for the background (city or nature landscapes, interior images painted on canvas across the entire wall). The photography space was filled with additional props: armchairs, columns, small tables, decorative fences, etc. The wooden floor used to be covered with carpets. A laboratory was set up next to the photography room for developing and producing photographs.

Very little photo studio equipment has survived in Lithuanian museums. Most of it is collected in the funds of the Photography Museum. The especially valuable and rare decorations of the photo studio, stored here, were in a rather bad condition: the things intensively used by photographers were rolled up, previously folded; for these reasons their fabric crumpled, the paint rubbed off, and in many places, there were clear bending lines, tears, the remaining marks of hammering nails. The thin layer of paint over the entire area was already crumbling and stained.

PHOTO STUDIO DECORATIONS BEFORE AND AFTER RESTORATION IN THE GALLERY

After conducting technological research, it was found that the basis of the photo studio decorations was canvas woven fabric. Using the method of morphological analysis, the cotton fibre was identified. The analysis of painting materials showed that the cotton fabric was not glued. The painting was painted directly on the fabric without primer coating. Binders and pigments were identified while studying paints by applying microchemical and FTIR spectral analysis methods. It was determined that the paint binder – starch – was mixed with a small amount of protein glue, the paint pigments were lithopone (BaSO4 and ZnS) and black ochre. The latter pigment is present in all shades of grey paint. This shows that these photo studio decorations were painted with gouache paints, in which oil and zinc white pigment were detected, without covering the base with either layers of glue or primer. The painting is not varnished. A microbiological examination showed that the decorations of the photo studio were infected with microscopic fungi. Conventional painting or textile conservation techniques were not suitable for conservation and restoration of the photo studio decorations. In this case, unique processes and non-traditional materials were applied. The Scientific Research Department of the Pranas Gudynas’ Conservation Centre conducted a search for new methods of conservation of decorations and experimental research.

The restored photo studio decorations are professionally painted, presumably they were ordered from special catalogues. They are dominated by grey and brown pastel colours, natural landscapes, the created illusion of an interior with an ornate column. Interestingly, the collections of the Photography Museum also preserve photographs in which people were photographed namely at these decorations. One of them, supposedly painted in Karaliaučius, dates back to the first half of the 20th century.  Others are from a later period, from around the middle of the 20th century. All of them were used by the photographer from Kupiškis, Juozas Karazija, whose all photo studio equipment is stored in the Photography Museum, and soon, a part of it, together with one of the restored decorations, will be exhibited in the new exposition of the Photography Museum, which is being prepared.

The project ‘Restoration of the collection of unique photo studio decorations’ was financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture