+ 6 Collections of the Rhenish Picture Archive held at the Historical Archive
With 5.16 million photographs, the Rheinisch Picture Archive (in German: Rheinisches Bildarchiv), founded in 1926, is one of the largest public art-historical image archives in Germany. Some of its collections have been integrated into prometheus for several years now. Six further collections from the image archive are now available for your research.
Heinrich Ewertz collection
Heinrich Ewertz, born in 1852, was originally an elementary school teacher and practiced photography only as a hobby. He was one of the pioneers who experimented with autochrome plates.
Chargesheimer – Jazz collection
Karl-Heinz Hargesheimer, born in 1924 and known by his stage name Chargesheimer, studied graphic design and photography at the Kölner Werkschulen after World War II. Between 1950 and 1970, he photographed jazz events in Cologne featuring outstanding musicians.
Josef Josuweck collection
Josef Josuweck, born around the turn of the century, ran a photography studio in Cologne starting in 1927. He worked in various fields of professional photography and, after World War II, documented the destruction in Cologne and the beginning of its reconstruction.
Johann Joseph Knippenberg collection
Johann Joseph Knippenberg, born in Rees in 1876, initially worked as a bookseller in his father’s printing shop. With the beginning at the turn of the century, he also took up photography and specialized in architectural and landscape photography. This led to the creation of a large number of images in the 1930s that follow the style of “Rhine Romanticism” and feature its classic landscape and architectural motifs.
August Kreyenkamp collection
August Kreyenkamp studied painting at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts beginning in 1895, moved to Cologne in 1899, and worked there as a freelance photographer starting in 1907. In addition to taking cityscapes and landscape photographs, he also worked as a scientific photographer.
Margarita Neiteler collection
Maria Margarita Neiteler, born in Greven in 1913, a largely unknown nun, documented the damage to and reconstruction of the cathedral at the end of World War II with exceptional photographic skill.
