Forum International Photography
The Forum Internationale Photographie (FIP) is part of the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim . His tasks include collecting, opening up, preserving and presenting bundles and estates of internationally recognized photo artists and photo collectors. The holdings are exhibited in changing presentations in the Zeughaus Museum ( square C 5). The three main collections are:
- historical travel photographs of the Reiss siblings,
- Robert Häusser Archive and
- Helmut Gernsheim Archive
The FIP was set up in 2002 thanks to funding from the Curt Engelhorn Foundation .
Collection of siblings Carl and Anna Reiss
The historical holdings are based on the one hand on the collections of the siblings Anna Reiss (1836–1915), Wilhelm Reiss (1838–1908) and Carl Reiss (1843–1914) and the photography collection of Jakob Lorent (1813-1884). The historic collection of siblings zip contains travel images and ethnographic photographs from the mid-19th century - about 4,000 unique albumen prints of photographs, which the family members on their travels in India , Ceylon , China and Japan , the United States and in many countries of Europe , in Syria , Lebanon , Palestine , Arabia , Egypt , Tunisia , Colombia , Ecuador , Brazil and in other countries. Travel photographs from the former Kingdom of Württemberg (taken between 1865 and 1867) belong to the inventory of the Lorent Collection, with 36 views of Jerusalem , which Lorent photographed in 1864, deserve special mention as unique pictorial documents. These collections are supplemented by the holdings of ethnographic recordings from the ethnographic department of the Reiss-Engelhorn museums.
Album cover, album with numerous photographs of the trip to India of the siblings Carl and Anna Reiss, Anonymous, 1891
Three women in the pillory, China, Anonymous, around 1875
Cloth merchant, studio shot, hand-colored albumen print , Anonymous, Japan, c. 1875
Gaucho, Argentina, Anonymous, 1868–1876
Helmut Gernsheim Collection
Since the beginning of 2002, the FIP has managed the contemporary part of the photo collection of the important photo historian and collector Helmut Gernsheim, as well as his artistic oeuvre, his entire estate and his photo library. The unique material consists of different branches of photography (photo journalism, product photography, portrait, landscape, animals, dance, theater and artistic, experimental positions) and forms a valuable basis for international research on the history of photography.
Robert Häusser Archive
With the photo collection of Robert Häusser , born in Stuttgart in 1924 , which the artist handed over to the FIP in 2002, the holdings were expanded to include an internationally recognized collection by an important contemporary photographer. Häusser, a pioneer of contemporary photography, is one of the few internationally recognized post-war German photographers who set standards with his unmistakable handwriting.
FIP exhibitions (selection)
- Focus on people - portraits of people from the Helmut Gernsheim collection (2003)
- Robert Häusser - The Photographic Work from 1938 - 2000 (Retrospective) (2004)
- To the banks of the Nile - historical travel photography from the Reiss siblings collection (2005)
- World Stars of Photography - All Hasselblad Prize Winners (2008)
- Birth of photography from the Helmut Gernsheim collection (2012)