The Photography Room in the National Museum in Warsaw’s Gallery of 19th Century Art

Abstract

The article discusses the functioning of the Photography Room in the National Museum in Warsaw’s Gallery of 19th Century Art, which since 2022 has exhibited the museum’s collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century photography, a one of its kind in Poland. The institution owes its collection to donations from Polish collectors and purchases with its own funds. The Photography Room exhibitions change several times a year. Each iteration is based on an original theme devised by staff members responsible for the NMW Collection of Photography and Iconography. The first exhibition, titled The Birth of Photography, presented the breadth of early photographic techniques and their evolution. Subsequent exhibitions were devoted to: Karol Beyer, European art exhibitions, artist studios, industrial photography and tableaux as a nineteenth century social medium. The shows in the Photography Room emphasize the versatility of the medium of photography: as a means of documenting reality, a tool for the promotion of art, and a field of technical and artistic experimentation. Shown in the exhibition are works by eminent creators from Poland and Europe. As a part of the permanent museum programme, these exhibits of historical photography, unlike any other in Poland, serve as an occasion to reflect on the significance of the medium in depicting the world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its connections with fine art. The Photography Room also plays an important educational role, hosting workshops, curatorial tours and activities for students. On the NMW website, the Gallery of 19th Century Art section now includes a page dedicated to the Photography Room, offering a virtual overview of all of the exhibitions. The opening of each new exposition in the Photography Room is supplemented with a curators’ article on the Digital NMW platform with descriptions and images of the works on display.