How Photographs Became Art

»Paragons Afterimages« – the pair of terms refers to correlations between images, but also to their production, where reference is made to ­already existing images. In the art academies and schools of applied arts in the 19th and early 20th century, photographs acted as »models« or ­»paragons« and served as their individual didactic type of image. Photographic reference material was an important aid in the creative practice of aspiring artists; and in the course of their use, ­»afterimages« were created in art classes: paint­ings, sculptures, drawings and graphics. The ­archives of the Berlin University of the Arts have preserved a photographic teaching collection that dates back to the 1850s and had already been created at the predecessor institutions, the Berlin Art Academy and the lead­ing School of Decorative Arts. With approximately 25,000 individual photographic prints, and additional bundles and albums, this collection is unique in Germany. Hardly ­noticed for a long time, it has in recent years been archivally and scientifically reviewed. The collection is presented for the first time in this book and with the exhibitions organized by the Münchner Stadtmuseum. The pictorial motifs, rich in variety, include art reproductions, land­scapes, nature studies of water, clouds, trees, plants, rocks etc., architecture, still lifes of fruits, glasses etc., portraits, genre scenes as well as tableaux ­vivants, nudes and animal studies, oriental and historical representations. The original studies – distributed in France as »études d’après nature« – are by well-known ­European and American ­photographers, among them: Fratelli ­Alinari, ­Ottomar Anschütz, Karl Blossfeldt, Adolphe Braun, Eugène Cuvelier, Georg Maria Eckert, Constantin Famin, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Jakob August Lorent, Gustave le Gray, James Robertson, Henry Peach Robinson, Giorgio ­Sommer, Carleton Watkins.

Exhibitions:
Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Fotografie, 7/2–26/7/2020
Museum für Fotografie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, 26/11/2020–5/4/2021 (extended until September 5, 2021)