The National Art Gallery Friday opened a retrospective called Cosmos on the work of photographer Antanas Sutkus. It is a comprehensive presentation of the 79-year-old artist’s work and the first exhibit of his work to appear in over a decade. It includes more than 300 items.

Photographer Gintaras Česonis, one of the curators of the Cosmos exhibit, said Sutkus is an exceptional figure in Lithuanian photography.

“Sutkus is extraordinarily important for all time. More than one generation has grown up with his work. It’s not a simple matter to take a fresh look at it. When people delve into Sutkus’s archives many come to the conclusion his creative work cannot be comprehended, it is the entire universe. And this is probably where the name Cosmos came from for the exhibit, the totality of unbounded things and time,” Česonis commented.

Curator Thomas Schirmböck said Sutkus is one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.

An album of Sutkus’s photos of Vilnius and Kaunas ghetto inmates called In Memoriam with the text in English was published two years ago.

The exhibit will run till January 13.