Aleksandra Vailokaitienė

Aleksandra Vailokaitienė née Jurašaitytė (18 March 1895 – 18 January 1957) was a Lithuanian photographer. In 1915, she inherited a photo studio from her father and photographed the life and people in Vilnius during World War I. In 1917, she took a series of about 60 photos of shelters, soup kitchens, etc. maintained by the Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers. She also photographed proceedings of Vilnius Conference in September 1917 and members of the Council of Lithuania. In January 1919, she married Jonas Vailokaitis, one of the members of the council and a successful businessman. She then moved to Kaunas leaving her photography career behind. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in June 1940, she escaped to Germany and then United States where she died in 1957.

Biography Photographer Vailokaitienė was born on 18 March 1895 likely in Bielsk Podlaski, where her father photographer had a photo studio. In 1904, Jurašaitis moved to Vilnius and became a popular photographer of various Lithuanian activists. When he died suddenly in 1915, the photo studio was taken over by Vailokaitienė and her mother Marija. Thus, Vailokaitienė became one of the first Lithuanian women photographers (the first was Paulina Mongird in Palanga). The photo studio continued to use printed signature of her father, thus her works are often mistakenly attributed to Jurašaitis.