Jan Bułhak was born in the village of Ostaszyn/Astašyn in 1876 and he died in the town of Giżycko in north-east Poland in 1950. A pioneer of Polish fine arts photography, he was also a theorist and critic of the form. Bułhak was a driving force in the clubs and union movement; he co-founded Fotoklub Wileński (the Vilnius Photoclub) in 1927, Photoclub Polski (the Polish Photoclub) in 1929 and the Związek Polskich Artystów Fotografików (Union of Polish Art Photographers) in 1947. He was connected with Vilnius and its environs for most of his life and that was where his most important photographic series were taken. He remained true to the tradition of pictorialism. In the late nineteen thirties, he formulated a programme of Polish photography which he also developed during the changing political realities of the Second World War. He specialised primarily in travel photography, landscapes and historical architecture.