Det Nationale Fotomuseum

Postbox 2149

1016 København K

Readingroom

Center for Maps, Prints and Photographs, the department’s readingroom is located on the E-level of the Diamond. In here original works may be studied, there is a reference collection of photolitterature, a documentation archive on Danish and international photographers and a newspaper archive. 8 online computers give access not only to the Danish Image Database, and hence the recorded collection, they also provide access to the electronic research facilities on the Internet in general.

Organization

The National Museum of Photography is a section within the Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs of the Royal Library. The department also consists of 3 other sections: the Map Collection, the section of Prints and Photographs and the section of Arial Photographs.

History

There has been photopgraphs in the collections of the Royal Library ever since the discovery of photography in 1839. At first tipped in printed books which came to the library by way of legal deposit. Later donations from private collectors helped increase the collection of photographs which since 1902 formed a part of the then newly etstablished Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs.

The library’s real and radical stake on photography came with the appointment of mag. art. Bj鴕n Ochsner as head of the department (1945-1980). He saw the significance of the photographic media and instituted the systematic collection of photographs of cultural historical as well as art-historical interest. The collection Photohistoric Prints was established including significant works of Danish as well as international photographers. 

At this time the library did not have a regular exhibition space and parts of the collection could therefore only occationally be shown such as in the Printcollection of the National Gallery in 1980 and at Charlottenborg in 1986. In time as photography became an established artform abroad the wish for a museum of photography based on the collections in the Royal Library was formed. 

In 1982 the Ministry of Culture appointed a working group to explore the possibilities, and in 1984 upon completion of the work the ministry gave its principal approval to the idea. The plans could not materialize however until the library’s extension on the Waterfront was a fact with the opening in September 1999.

The museum collection is currently being mounted on specially produced acid-free photocardboard and recorded in the online catalogue of the library REX2000. It is therefore gradually becoming available on the Internet in the Danishl Image Database of the Royal Library. For copyright reasons only the textrecord and not the individual image is on view in the database.

The National Museum of Photography also has a seizable collection of negatives e.g. including the first Danish press photographer Holger Damgaard (1870-1945), portrait photographers Julie Laurberg (18556-1925) and Rie Nissen (1904-1988), the German modernist Hans Robertson (1883-1950) and Sven Türck (1897-1954). These negatives are kept in a newly built fully climate controlled storage facility.

Finally the museum also has an album-collection containing not only album but also books with original photographic work and photographers archives such as photographer Helmer Lund Hansen’s (1910-1992) archive.