Philippine people and landscapes in the photographs from Pranciškus Baltrus Šivickis’ photoarchive

Abstract

The photoarchive of Pranciškus Baltrus Šivickis (1882–1968), one of the most prominent Lithuanian biologists of the 20th century, is very large containing about 3 000 photos. This has been the first attempt at investigating the photoarchive. In the article, photos from the period 1922–1928 when P. B. Šivickis was professor at University of Philippines are published alongside with their analysis. The analysis of his photoarchive repeatedly reinforces the image of a personality of varied attainments. He liked to photograph and had a variety of interests: Philippine nature, landscape, architecture, historical monuments, traditions and customs, sketches of everyday life, engineering equipment, etc. This makes his photos of great value to historians who investigate the period of time (1922–1928) in general and the history of the country, ethnography and University of Philippines in particular. The majority of photos are portraits of his students and of University’s staff which shows that not only scientific activity but also pedagogical work has been very much to his liking. Many localities in Philippines have been photographed with the emphasis on Puerto Galera where P. B. Šivickis has established Marine Biology Station. In the photos we identified part of P. B. Šivickis’ assistants and students and the professorship of University of Philippines: President Rafael Palma, Dean of Liberal Arts College Maximo M. Kalaw and others. Of course, there is quite a number of artistic photos, however, in technical terms the quality is often far from satisfactory. The fact that sometimes photos have been glued in full to album pages or on Whatman paper is a great deterioration; besides, it aggravates the deciphering process – makes the reading of inscriptions on the reverse impossible. Apart from photographs taken by P. B. Šivickis the photoarchive also contains portraits of Philippine people taken in photo studios and given to him as a present. The gift portraits reveal the trends in photography of those times and allow us to make some suppositions about his personal life in Philippines.