Man Ray: Gräfin Casati, ca. 1922
Man Ray, Gräfin Casati, ca. 1922, Gelatinesilver, 39 x 29,8 cm

VIDEO GALLERY: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #01 Lu­cia Mo­ho­ly

    From the se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #02 Ce­cil Bea­t­on

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #03 Chargesheimer

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #04 Bill Brandt

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #05 Richard Ave­don

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers: #06 Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #07 Alvin Lang­don Coburn

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #09 Ed van der Elsken

    From the Se­ries: Pho­­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #10 Ansel Adams

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #11 Tim Gi­dal

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #12 Jac­ques-Hen­ri Lar­tigue

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #13 Du­ane Michaels

    From the Se­ries: Pho­­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #14 Au­gust San­der

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #15 Al­bert Renger-Patzsch

    From the Se­ries: Pho­­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #16 Ed­ward Steichen

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #17 Hu­go Er­furth

    From the Se­ries: Pho­­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #18 Hi­roshi Ha­maya

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #19 Robert Le­beck

    From the Se­ries: Pho­­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #20 Irv­ing Penn

    From the Se­ries: Pho­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­tion

  • Re­nate Gru­ber re­mem­bers:
    #21 pho­tok­i­na

    From the Se­ries: Pho­­to­g­ra­phers, Friend­­ships, and the Unique Gru­ber Col­lec­­tion

The Photography Collection of the Museum Ludwig

The Mu­se­um Lud­wig holds an out­s­tand­ing col­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs en­com­pass­ing some 70,000 works from the be­gin­n­ing of pho­tog­ra­phy in the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry to the pre­sent. Start­ing in 2017, parts of the Pho­to­graph­ic Col­lec­tion will be show­cased in a spe­cial Pho­tog­ra­phy Room within the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the Lud­wig Mu­se­um in an ef­fort to gra­d­u­al­ly pre­sent the col­lec­tion. The room pro­vides the Mu­se­um Lud­wig with a per­ma­nent space ded­i­cat­ed to pho­tog­ra­phy.

To ex­pand our ex­hi­bi­tion area, we are al­so si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly open­ing the FO­TO LAB, a space in which chil­dren and adults can par­ti­ci­pate and ex­per­i­ment. Vis­i­tors will be able to ex­pe­ri­ence how a cam­era ob­s­cu­ra—the orig­i­nal cam­er­a—­works, pose in front of a pho­to mu­ral, or put to­gether their own ex­hi­bi­tion us­ing fif­ty re­pro­duc­tions from the Pho­to­graph­ic Col­lec­tion. Th­ese re­pro­duc­tions were pro­vid­ed by Pix­um, an on­line pho­to ser­vice based in Cologne. This space will an­i­mate the Mu­se­um Lud­wig’s Pho­to­graph­ic Col­lec­tion in a num­ber of ways while al­so mak­ing it more ac­ces­si­ble.

The Pho­tog­ra­phy Col­lec­tion goes dig­i­tal

The dig­i­ti­za­tion of the col­lec­tion in a scho­lar­ly database for re­search­ers is another im­por­tant part of the work of the mu­se­um’s Pho­tog­ra­phy Col­lec­tion. Thanks to the con­s­tant gener­ous sup­port of Pix­um, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig has been able to dig­i­tize about 5,000 pho­to­graphs from the Ag­fa Col­lec­tion in the last four years. The Pho­to­graph­ic Col­lec­tion will be pub­lished se­quen­tial­ly, in sec­tions, at www.mu­se­um-lud­wig.kul­turelles-erbe-koeln.de, mak­ing it ac­ces­si­ble to ev­ery­one. At the mo­ment, the dig­i­ti­za­tion will cont­in­ue with the es­tate of the pho­to­g­ra­pher Eva Siao.

Ex­plore the Col­lec­tion!

In our Study Room, vis­i­­tors can view works from the Pho­­to­­graph­ic and Graph­ic col­lec­­tions up­­on no­tice in ad­­vance. We ask for a lead time of four weeks, al­though we al­­so try to ac­­com­­mo­­date sub­­mis­­sions at short no­tice.

This of­fer is ad­­dressed to any­one in­­ter­est­ed, from scho­lars to am­a­­teurs. Sim­p­­ly send us an email to stu­di­en­raummu­se­um-lud­wig.de to place an ap­­poin­t­­ment.

The His­to­ry of the Pho­tog­ra­phy Col­lec­tion

The Mu­se­um Lud­wig pre­serves one of Eu­rope’s largest and most sig­ni­f­i­cant col­lec­tions of nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry pho­tog­ra­phy. From the out­set it was above all ded­i­cat­ed col­lec­tors who con­tribut­ed to its di­ver­si­ty and qual­i­ty. Just one year af­ter the found­ing of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig in 1976, for in­s­tance, the corn­er­s­tone of the pre­sent Pho­tog­ra­phy Col­lec­tion was laid with the purchase of works from the L. Fritz Gru­ber Col­lec­tion. This nu­cleus was then cont­in­u­al­ly ex­pand­ed through fur­ther do­na­tions from the cou­ple L. Fritz and Re­nate Gru­ber. Gru­ber fos­tered first-rate con­tacts to pho­to­g­ra­phers in Ger­many and abroad and, as the or­ganiz­er of the pho­tok­i­na-Bilder­schauen (pho­tok­i­na pho­to ex­hi­bi­tions), helped to bring their work to public at­ten­tion af­ter the col­lapse of the Na­tio­n­al So­cial­ist dic­ta­tor­ship.

To­gether with the col­lec­tions of the Ag­fa Pho­to-His­to­ra­ma, the pho­to­g­ra­pher Robert Le­beck, and Daniela Mrazko­va, as well as a large body of Rus­sian pho­to­graphs of the 1920s and 1930s on loan from the Peter and Irene Lud­wig Foun­da­tion, the Pho­tog­ra­phy Col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig in­cor­po­rates ear­ly daguerreo­types, unique in­cunab­u­la from the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, ma­jor artis­tic pho­to­graphs, al­bums, and port­fo­lios, as well as wide-rang­ing ma­te­rials on the cul­tu­r­al his­to­ry of the medi­um. The pho­to­g­ra­pher Robert Le­beck, for ex­am­ple, amassed nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry pho­to­graphs and al­bums on a large scale—in­clud­ing nu­mer­ous trav­el pho­to­graph­s—that have been housed in the Mu­se­um Lud­wig since 1994. And, at the out­set of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, the pho­tog­ra­phy his­to­rian Erich Stenger be­gan sys­te­m­at­i­cal­ly col­lect­ing pho­to­graphs and his­tor­i­cal ma­te­rials on pho­tog­ra­phy, such as car­i­ca­tures and books. Th­ese were purchased by Ag­fa in 1955 and pre­sent­ed at the Ag­fa Fo­to-His­to­ra­ma Mu­se­um on the Bay­er/Ag­fa fac­to­ry premis­es in 1974. A rec­og­nized “na­tio­n­al trea­sure,” the col­lec­tion was ac­quired by the Mu­se­um Lud­wig in 2005.

A first-rate ex­pan­sion of the Rus­sian Avant-Garde col­lec­tion area was made pos­si­ble with the purchase of the Daniela Mrazko­va Col­lec­tion in 2008. Reg­u­lar spe­cial ex­hi­bi­tions make the Pho­to­graph­ic Col­lec­tion in the Mu­se­um Lud­wig ac­ces­si­ble.

In re­cent de­cades the col­lec­tion has been brought up to date through purchas­es and gifts, in­clud­ing works by An­dreas Gursky, Tho­mas Ruff, Wolf­gang Till­mans, Chris­to­pher Wil­li­ams, and Sh­er­rie Levine, to name on­ly a few.

All works in the mu­se­um's col­lec­tions have to un­der­go conser­va­tio­n­al man­n­ers on a reg­u­lar ba­sis. Pho­to­graph­ic works are ex­treme­ly sen­si­tive to light and can on­ly be on dis­play for three months, be­fore they have to be tak­en back to stor­age where they re­cov­er. Th­ese phas­es of re­cov­ery can take up to five years.
We do our best to pre­sent a se­lec­tion of works from the pho­to­graph­ic col­lec­tion in the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion and in spe­cial ex­hi­bi­tions reg­u­lar­ly.