With some 73,000 photographs, the Berlinische Galerie boasts one of Germany’s leading photography collections. Portraits, architectural views and urban photography are the principal themes, but commercial and fashion photography, photojournalism, photomontage, photograms and conceptual photography are all part of the picture. Our collection reflects the evolution of photography as an art form – and the history of the medium in Berlin.
In its early days, photography served above all to document rapid urban growth, but in the 1920s Berlin became a hotspot for the avant-garde camera. Exceptional contributions continued after 1945: from the 1970s, for instance, exponents of auteur photography turned a radically subjective gaze upon the city and its people. One distinctive hallmark of our collection is its fine art photography from the GDR, where a vibrant, creative scene emerged despite the imposition of political criteria and reprisals against those who broke the rules. We observe the development of contemporary photographers in Berlin and support them by means of extensive purchases.
Highlights in the collection
Emphases in the photographic collection
Leopold Ahrendts, Hugo Erfurth, M. Panckow, Nicola Perscheid, Hermann Rückwardt, F. Albert Schwartz, Heinrich Zille
Marta Astfalk-Vietz, Erwin Blumenfeld, Steffi Brandl, Marianne Breslauer, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Raoul Hausmann, Lotte Jacobi, Edmund Kesting, El Lissitzky, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Alexander Rodtschenko, August Sander, Sasha Stone, Umbo, Yva
Marianne Brandt, Paul Citroen, Albert Hennig, Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter A. Peterhans, Hajo Rose, Grete Stern, Elsa Thiemann
Max Baur, Fritz Brill, Fritz Eschen, Gebr. Haeckel, Emil Leitner, Max Missmann, Ina Muster-Schatzmann, Osram-Photodienst, Friedrich Seidenstücker, Kurt-Karl Schultz, Sasha Stone, Paul Weber
Felix H. Man, Martin Munkacsi, Erich Salomon
From the picture archives of the magazine “Volk und Welt” (Erich Bieber, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ruth Hallensleben, Heinrich Hoffmann, Max Krajewsky, Erna Lendvai-Dircksen, Linkhorst, Heinz von Perkhammer, Erich Retzlaff, Hans Retzlaff, August Rumbucher jr., Wolf Strache and Liselotte Strelow)
Georgij Petrussow, Iwan Schagin
Ursula Arnold, Klaus Eschen, Arno Fischer, Gerhard Gronefeld, Herbert Hensky, Gerhard Kiesling, Fritz Kühn, Henry Ries, Horst Sturm, Herbert Tobias, Kurt Wendlandt
Dieter Appelt, Sibylle Bergemann, Christian Borchert, Manfred Hamm, Bernd Heyden, Anne Jud, Thomas Leuner, Hans W. Mende, Barbara Metselaar Berthold, Floris M. Neusüss, Gabriele und Helmut Nothhelfer, Helga Paris, Michael Schmidt, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Maria Sewcz, Uwe Steinberg, Ulrich Wüst
Bernd und Ute Eickemeyer, André Kirchner, Karl-Ludwig Lange, Hans W. Mende, Ulrich Wüst
Max Baumann, Kristleifur Björnsson, Thomas Demand, Nina Fischer und Maroan El Sani, Thomas Florschuetz, Beate Gütschow, Verena Jaekel, Veronika Kellndorfer, Rémy Markowitsch, Arwed Messmer, Boris Mikhailov, Jean-Luc Moulène, Heidi Specker, Stephen Wilks, Frank Thiel, Tobias Zielony
Discover the Photographic Collection in Collection Online
Go to Collection Online
Contact
Katia Reich
Head of the Photography Collection
Phone +49 030-789 02-841
reich@berlinischegalerie.de