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Departments Photograph Collection

Collection Manager: Slavko Šterk, Museum Adviser

1. The Historical Origins of the Collection

The Photographs and Photographic Equipment Collection was founded immediately after the founding of the Museum itself, in 1907, when the Museum obtained its first stereoscopic, dioramic positives and negatives, photographs and postcards. Studio, amateur and tradesmen’s photographs are dominant.

A second stimulus, resulting in the expansions of the collection, was given by the Cultural and Historical Exhibition of the City of Zagreb, in 1925, when the Museum was given significant photographic albums by L. Schwoiser, I. Standl, E. Fickert, I. Varga, O. Dasch, H. Krapek, I. Dryjak, Mosinger and Breyer.

The Collection took on new dimensions between 1928 and 1943 during the time Gjuro Szabo was director of the museum, with the accession of new work and documentary photographs.

In 1953 the Museum set up its own photographic section (run by Vladimir Guteša from 1953 to 1961, by Josip Vranić from 1961 to 2000, and from 2000 by Miljenko Gregl), which gathers and makes photographic documents about old Zagreb and its current life and development, as well as about the events in and around the Museum. The historical collection has gradually developed into an up-to-date and contemporary collection, with current, journalistic and art photography becoming increasingly dominant.

During time, the collection has gradually been enriched with bequests, gifts and purchases.

2. The Thematic Organisation of the Collection

The City of Zagreb and its Environs

• the streets, squares, cities and interiors, panoramas, parks and cemeteries
• views of the Upper and Lower towns from look-out points, balloons and aircraft
• Sljeme and its environs
• the oldest depictions of the city, floor plans and drawings
• architectural and city planning documents, maps and cadastral surveys
• architectural drawings of individual secular and sacred buildings
• detailed drawings of modern architects
• churches and chapels, furnishings: the treasury of the Cathedral, the Metropolitan Library, archival contents
• utilities, sewerage, water mains, gas, electricity, cleansing department, fire brigade, municipal economy equipment, municipal works, traffic, the post
• television, sport, education, health care, culture
• political events, rallies, visits of statesmen, accidents, disasters, performances
• trade and art exhibitions, the Zagreb Corporation and Fair
• fairs and marketplaces, crafts, department stores, shop windows
• taverns, restaurants, cafés, bars, hotels, banks, theatres and cinemas
• industrial and agricultural buildings (factories, slaughterhouses, foundries, breweries, mills, printing shops)
• political and other events, public monuments, life on the street, funerals, carnival, processions, fetes, anniversaries, conferences, strikes, graffiti
• the labour movement, the Partisan war, the 10^th Zagreb Corps, the Croatian Independence War
• personalities, individual and group portraits of all areas of social, political and cultural life,
• Zagreb associations, mainly group portraits
• army, barracks
• Zagreb photographers and studios of the 19^th and 20^th centuries (original photographs), cameras and equipment, Zagreb School of Cartoon Films, caricaturists
• photographers and studios outside Zagreb (original photographs by foreign photographers)

Life in and around the Museum

• museum objects, classified according to kinds and techniques
• private and public collections
• the permanent display of the Museum from 1954
• Museum employees (excursions and professional trips)
• adult education work, lectures, promotions, presentations and events
• restoration of artworks in our own and other workshops
• archaeological research during the conversion of the Convent of the Poor Clares (today the building of the Museum), the area of the city of Zagreb, the immediate area (Žumberak)

Photographs in the Permanent Display of the ZCM

Topic 33, From the Photographic Studio, photographs of the most important names of Zagreb photography are displayed in an easy-view wooden box. Apart from that, the display rooms have 286 photographs (originals, copies, enlargements), 70 postcards and 3 photographic albums, which complement the material presented. Both home and foreign photographers are represented.

3. Exhibition of Photographs in the Museum Photographic Laboratory

According to the Statutes of Zagreb City Museum, individuals and establishments can request the making of photographs, negatives, slides in black and white, colour or toned, as well as digital photographs on CD or DVD, according to a set price list.

4. The Extent of the Collection

The stock of registered photographs (photographic calling cards, daguerreotypes, stereoscopic photographs), freestanding or framed, and photographic albums, today includes more than 25,000 items. The number of negatives, from Leica format to Size VIII, approaches 25,000. There are some 2,000 slides, from Leica format to 8.5 x 8.5 and 9 x 12. There are ca 4,000 postcards, black and white and colour, of local and foreign origin.

Slavko Šterk

Photographs

The Klaić Family ca 1861 photograph, 11 x 15 cm MGG fot. 15.818 Julius Hühn (Gera, Saxony, 1830 - Zagreb, 1896) In Thuringia he went to commercial school and learned lithography at Bornshein and Lowe. Invited by K. Albrecht, in 1855 he arrived in his printing works in Zagreb as manager. In early 1859 he opened up his own lithographic printing works and paper shop. He did photography at the end of the 1850s and in the 1860s. His photographs of Zagreb have an exceptional documentary value.

Jelačić Square before the 1880 Earthquake

The heart of the town with the equestrian statue of Ban Jelačić (1866) by A. D. Fernkorn, which gave the square the quality of the main city square.
ca 1880
tinted photograph, 16 x 23.5 cm
MGZ fot. 5086
Gjuro Varga (Köszek ? - Zagreb ?)
From 1878 to 1893 he was in charge of the Varga Bros Photographic Studio, Zagreb-Velika Kaniža, and from 1893 to 1904 he worked with his brother in a new Zagreb studio (Ilica 25 and 34). He was one of the most important representatives of Zagreb portrait photography in the 1880s and 1890s.

Zagreb Skating Rink

The photograph was taken south of the Kolo Building, below the railway line
January 14, 1893
photograph, 18 x 24 cm
MGZ fot. 15.831
A. Mühlbauer
A representative of the first generation of amateur photographers, and a member of the Art Association. He photographed Zagreb motifs. The ZCM photograph collection has 12 original glass negatives taken in the 1890-1893 period.