Photography Museum In Norway

The Preus Photography Museum In Norway 

Is Toured By The AKN Editor

 

The Preus Museum is the national museum for photography in Norway and is situated in Horten. It was originally founded by the Preus family as a private museum, but the collection was acquired by the Norwegian government in 1995. In 2001, the museum moved to a former naval facility in Karljohansvern. The facilities have been adapted for museum use based on the work of architect Sverre Fehn. It is the National museum of photography, with a vast collection covering all aspects of the history of photography, Preus museum offers visitors many exciting experiences within the expanded field of photography: from the earliest technical and scientific experiments to contemporary photographic art that has pushed back the boundaries of what a photograph can be. The museum collection consists of Norwegian and international photographs, cameras and other artefacts illustrating the history of photography. The museum also incorporates a specialist photographic library. In 2005 the museum launched its own journal Om Fotografi (On Photography). In cooperation with the National Library of Norway, the museum is extending its Index of Photographers and Collections. The museum has defined its field of concern as the expanded field of photography. This implies that the museum approaches photography within the context of contemporary art and a broader visual culture. The museum library covers the prehistory and history of photography, photographic techniques, camera history and photography as art and documentation. The library holds some 25,000 titles, including annual publications and annually collected journals, catalogues and brochures. The extensive collection of journals encompasses 1,000 titles, of which 80 are regularly subscribed. More specifically, it means that in the future the museum will view photography in conjunction with moving pictures and new, digital technologies. A further consequence is that the museum will apply an inter-disciplinary perspective to the history of photography. The Preus Museum is one of the important collecting institutions for photography in the world and the most important in Norway. Website :_ http://www.preusmuseum.no/english/index.php

The museum’s unique collections consist of photographs, albums and images of various other types, cameras and other technical equipment, and a specialist library. The picture collection is broadly representative of the history of photography as described by Beaumont Newhall and Helmut Gernsheim. Especially well represented in the collection are the early history of photography from the 19th century, pictorialism as it developed in English and German speaking countries and among Norwegian camera clubs, and new objectivism and modernism as these developed. The primary focus of the Norwegian material was originally on early landscapes and portraits, together with considerable material from the realm of fashion/advertising and art photography. Over the past ten years, the collection has been expanded with many works by Norwegian photographers active in the field of art photography, as well as by professionals and amateurs working with documentary, advertising and portraits. The collection is also strengthened by the purchase of pivotal works by international contemporary artists working in the expanded field of photography. With its broad temporal and genre perspective, it goes without saying that the collection represents a significant number of processes that illustrate the historic development of photography: from daguerreotypes, autochromes and stereo photography through to contemporary color photography, and from early photo-mechanical techniques through to modern digital printing. The museum’s extensive collection of cameras and other technical equipment both supplements the technical aspects of the history of photographic processes and tells the story of a major international industry built on the determination to create pictures: from the 18th century camera obscura to the daguerreotype camera, special cameras for microscopic, panoramic, stereoscopic photography, cameras for espionage, three-color pictures, portraits or travel; folding cameras and box cameras, single and dual lens reflex cameras, small image cameras and miniature cameras. The book collection encompasses literature from the 16th century through to today. The history of photography is told here in all its complexity by means of various focal themes such as chemistry, optics, art, technology, as well as through user manuals and textbooks. The collection also contains a large number of books with original photographs and seminal works about countless photographers, in addition to an extensive collection of journals including major titles such as Camera Work, Camera Notes and Life. There is also a large number of Scandinavian and European photography journals for both amateurs and professionals. The book collection functions as a library.