Rarely is it possible to unearth a treasure in a well-stocked museum, i.e. in full view of everyone.

One that has always been there.

But it was something like that when, about ten years ago, one of the core elements of the Städel Museum was brought back into view for the first time: the collection of historical photographs.

The fact that they exist still amazes even experienced museum visitors to this day.

Eva Maria Magel

Senior cultural editor of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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It was the same when the exhibition “Seeing New. Photography in the 1920s and 1930s” explained the history and uses of photography in these few years with more than 100 exhibits. Almost all of them came from the Städel Museum's own collection. But the treasures from the Weimar period are real new additions compared to the historical inventory that Kristina Lemke, as head of the collection, can now work with. Of course he was known in the house, she says. But it had not been worked up in the past. With the photographic permanent loan from the DZ-Bank in 2008, photography from the 1960s to the 21st century came to the Städel. In 2011 and 2013, collections by Uta and Wilfried Wiegand as well as Annette and Rudolf Kicken were added.the 1920s to 1950s made their appearance.

tell the story of photography

Again and again, collectors and friends of photography refer to the long tradition and the inventory in order to supplement it with donations.

For example, a collection of photographs of Paul Wolff's IG Farben building, to which Lemke dedicated her dissertation, has entered the collection.

Another stroke of luck is Ilse Bing's work, which was donated to the museum as part of "See New".

Lemke says that not everything on offer is perfect, but the large donations of recent years have resulted in more.

And some things could also be bought, for example snapshots from the Bauhaus came to the Main.

When a lot was rearranged behind the scenes with the conversion and redesign of the museum in 2011, the early historical photographs came into focus again, treasures from the 19th century. Lemke was “completely fascinated”, and she still is today. And that despite the fact that historical photography hardly played a role in the study of art history. “You have to learn it through self-study,” she says.

From 1850 to the present day, photography is available in “representative excerpts” at the museum, “so that the history of photography can be told,” says Lemke, which she also wants to do in cabinet exhibitions in the future.

Altogether there are now more than 5000 photographs that she looks after, a number that is easy to work with.

Lemke is hoping for more information in the course of time and research for projects - because all information was lost during the Second World War.

Sharp contrast

“Seeing New” was Lemke's first major exhibition as the new head of the photography collection and curator, following smaller works as a staff member. Now, from February 15, “Andreas Mühe. Stories of Conflict" with works by the photographer, who was born in 1979. The current political pictures are a sharp contrast to what the Marburg and Mainz trained art historian, born in 1987, does with passion in the extremely sober and cool basement rooms where the collection is stored.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius, photographed by Giorgio Sommer on April 26, 1872, the many reproductions of drawings by the old masters: it was probably a mixture of education and training that formed the basis of the collection, which soon after the Städelsches Kunstinstitut was founded including the gallery was started in 1816.

One has to imagine the Städel students of the 19th century surrounding one of the folders in which photographs of works by Albrecht Dürer or Hans Holbein the Elder are stored, which they are studying in detail.

On the edge of a photograph of the Imperial Palace in Gelnhausen, taken around 1870, there are still pencil sketches of the structures, probably made by students.

Luckily not thrown away

The Frankfurt photographer Carl Friedrich Mylius (1827–1916) photographed the remains of the Palatinate in Gelnhausen, which belong to the very old inventory of the Städel Museum. Johann David Passavent (1787–1861), the so-called inspector of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut from 1840, had started collecting around 1850 and specifically commissioned photographers he knew. As a painter and scholar himself, he saw an opportunity to use reproductions to impart knowledge of art history not only to the Städel students but also to the public. He had albums made with photographic reproductions of Old Masters and, as a Raphael expert, showed drawings for the Sistine Chapel in their original size - as photographs. And as early as 1852 there was an exhibition of photographs of Venice in the Städel.

They have not survived, but hundreds of other originals from the mid to late 19th century have.

In addition to their artistic and cultural-historical value, they reflect both the technical and artistic development of the medium of photography and the use and maintenance within the museum.

Topics enough for research and presentation.

Collection continued until 1920, after which photography, whose role in advertising and art grew, hardly played a role in the Städel Museum.

Perhaps because that no longer suited the collection approach with which the Städel curators had brought together photographs as study objects, testimonies.

After all, many other institutes simply threw away these early examples of photographic technology.

Luckily they stayed in the Städel.