Nineteenth-century photography is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

An exhibition has opened at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, running from June 17 to September 17, that aims to investigate nineteenth-century photography: it is a major retrospective, entitled New Realities. Photography in the Nineteenth Century (“New Realities. Photography in the Nineteenth Century”), which will display more than three hundred nineteenth-century photographs from the museum’s collection, with the aim of showing visitors the changes that the art of photography underwent immediately after its invention in 1839.

There will be portraits, nudes, city views, travel photos, commercial and scientific photographs, and even early amateur shots. On display will be works by the early great pioneers of photography, such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Roger Fenton, Gustave Le Gray, and also several unpublished works. Among the major curiosities will be the photographs of Anna Atkins, the first woman photographer as well as author of the first picture book with photography. Space will also be given to early Dutch photographers, such as Georg Hendrik Breitner and Willem Witsen.

“Today photography,” the presentation reads, “is a universal language that everyone speaks and understands, but it is a far cry from how it was in the early days of the medium. There is a great difference between today’s shots and the experiments of the early photographers, who had to produce great efforts to achieve their results. This medium, new and magical, brought about changes of revolutionary magnitude on the imagery that the public was used to seeing in paintings, drawings or engravings. Photography introduced an entirely new way of seeing and interpreting reality.”

On the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to 19th-century photography, the Rijksmuseum will also exhibit the Sea views collection, a selection of contemporary shots that have sea views as their theme: this is an anonymous donation that includes works by Ray Metzker, Viviane Sassen and Franco Fontana, among others. For all information you can visit the Rijksmuseum website.

Image: Georg Hendrik Breitner, Marie Jordan naakt op de rug gezien (1890; photographic paper, 9.9 x 8.9 cm; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Nineteenth-century photography is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam

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