Agfa Photo Historama

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Agfa Foto-Historama at the photokina, Cologne 1968. Photo: Archive Museum Ludwig, Cologne

The Agfa Photo Historama is a photographic collection. In addition to nearly 20,000 cameras and other technical devices, it includes a library with over 3000 illustrated books and historical documents on the history of photography , as well as over 12,000 photographs from the beginnings of photography in the 19th century to the present day. With the exception of the cameras and devices, the collection has been part of the “Photography Collection” of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne since 2005 .

history

Erich Stenger

The basis is the collection of Erich Stenger , who already dealt with the history of photography as a teenager. After studying chemistry in Munich and Kiel, he became an assistant at the Technical University of Charlottenburg (today TU Berlin) and from 1934 head of the Institute for Applied Photochemistry. In the 1930s, the collection developed into what was then the largest private collection of photographic history in the world. In his memoirs of a collector , Stenger writes: “Without being pressured by competitors, I was able to buy, sift through and peel out the important things. The 'program' of my photo collection slowly emerged; it became more and more extensive, also with regard to certain accompanying phenomena. ”He retired in 1945. He had already relocated the collection to Franconia during the war .

Agfa

In 1955, Stenger's collection was taken over by Agfa-Gevaert AG , which then systematically expanded it. In 1969 and 1971 there were 300 portraits taken by Hugo Erfurth and 1000 cameras from Hanns J. Wendel's private photo museum in Düsseldorf. This was completed by 20,000 devices from the archive of the Agfa camera factory in Munich. In 1968, parts of the collection were shown for the first time as Agfa Photo Historama at the photokina in Cologne.

After years of provisional housing, the collection was first publicly exhibited in Leverkusen in 1974 under its current name. In 1985 it went on permanent loan to the city of Cologne.

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Since the opening of the new building of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 1986, the collection has been shown there in changing presentations. Bodo von Dewitz became the first manager of the collection and acquired some thematically related smaller collections for the city through purchase or donation. When the Agfa Foto-Historama was to be auctioned off at auction in 2005, von Dewitz succeeded in having the photo collection recognized as a national cultural asset and thus saved the collection as a whole by being acquired by the city. Bodo von Dewitz retired from office in 2013 due to his age. Miriam Halwani is the new curator for photography. Most of the collection can be viewed online in the Museum Ludwig's online database.

Outline of the components

During his inspection, Bodo von Dewitz divided the collection into ten sections for the first presentation of the Agfa Photo Historama in the new domicile in 1986:

  1. Original photographs from 1840 to 1945/1955 "... almost all well-known photographers of the 19th century," all processes from daguerreotypes to fine printing processes.
  2. Albums, portfolios and publications with original photographs, including a gift book from Henry Fox Talbot to Alexander von Humboldt and travel books from Maxime Du Camp , Auguste Salzmann and others. a.
  3. Testimony to the use of photographs on and on objects such as porcelain
  4. Pre-photographic print products such as peep box pictures , lithographs and heliographs , photo engravings , postcards, etc.
  5. Caricatures and Ä. That relate to photography, z. B. from daily newspapers, also Honoré Daumier's lithographs
  6. Company signs, advertising material, labels, as well as certificates and awards
  7. Photo and film cameras, including full daguerreotype equipment
  8. Viewing and playback devices
  9. Studio and workshop facilities
  10. Library and document collection with autographs and manuscripts, as well as one of the most complete collections of photo magazines

Selection of well-known photographers in the collection

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Bodo von Dewitz : The Agfa Photo Historama in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum / Museum Ludwig of the city of Cologne. A selection of photographs from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Picture booklet No. 1, City of Cologne, Cologne 1986.
  • Agfa Photo Historama . In: Yvonne and Thomas Plum: Art, cocoa and carnival - what museums in and around Cologne show. JP Bachem, Cologne 1995.
  • Miriam Halwani (ed.): We don't take photographs ... Memories of the collector Erich Stenger (1878–1957), Heidelberg / Berlin, 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jan Thorn-Prikker: The Agfa Collection, Cologne - The history of photography in outstanding examples. Homepage of the Goethe Institute , July 2006.
  2. ↑ a b c d Beaumont Newhall: "The late Erich Stenger" ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 20.7 MB). Obituary in: Image - Journal of Photography and Motion Pictures of the George Eastman House. Vol. 7, No. 1 January 1958. p. 4. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / image.eastmanhouse.org
  3. ↑ a b Fascination of the Moment: A History of Technology in Photography (PDF; 580 kB). German Museum of Technology Berlin 2/2007. Pp. 4-13.
  4. ↑ Miriam Halwani: We don't take photographs ... Memories of the collector Erich Stenger (1878–1957) . Ed .: Miriam Halwani. Heidelberg / Berlin 2014, p. 125 .
  5. ↑ a b c The collection of the Agfa Photo-Historamas in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. (No longer available online.) Artcontent.de, formerly in the original ; accessed on June 15, 2014 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.rheinischemuseen.de  
  6. ↑ "Agfa Photo Historama" . In: Yvonne and Thomas Plum: Art, cocoa and carnival - what museums in and around Cologne show. JP Bachem Verlag. Cologne 1995.
  7. ^ A b Greetings from Mayor Fritz Schramma on the opening of the exhibition “Facts / Photographs of the 19th and 20th Centuries. The Agfa Collection in the Museum Ludwig ” (PDF; 51 kB) stadt-koeln.de. May 19, 2006. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  8. ↑ Helga Meister: Bodo von Dewitz: A stroke of luck for photography , in: Westdeutsche Zeitung , January 30, 2013
  9. ↑ Press release of the City of Cologne from July 30, 2013.
  10. ↑ Bodo von Dewitz: The Agfa Photo Historama in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum / Museum Ludwig of the city of Cologne. A selection of photographs from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Picture booklet No. 1, City of Cologne, Cologne 1986. P. 7f. The following quotes from there.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 27 ″  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 37 ″  E