Photo Collection

The Historical Photo and Interview Collection is the youngest one within the special collections of the National Széchényi Library. It came to life in 2008, by melting the holdings of the former Contemporary Photo Art Collection and Documentation Center - founded jointly by the National Széchényi Library and the Association of Hungarian Photographers in December 2000, the task of which was to collect the artwork made by contemporary Hungarian photographers, together with documentation related to their activity – and the various photography-related items which had already been preserved in the Library since the beginnings.

Its aim is to provide, process and provide service concerning the photos which can be found in its own collection as well as the further special collections of the Library.

At present, the Historical Photo and Interview Collection comprises as many as 40,000 glass plates, the majority of which documents state-ordered huge constructions that began in the 1960s; furthermore, there is a set of c. 3000 glass negatives immortalizing Transylvanian towns and landscapes from the 1930s, too. Besides these, there are several thousands of portraits and other historical photos from the period preceding 1945, and reproduction photos taken of the codices, old masters’ prints and manuscripts of the Library’s original collection.

Especially valuable is the unit consisting of photos from the years of World War I, as well as the 38,000 negatives of the renowned photographer Károly Escher, a part of his legacy. The Slide Film, Photo and Graphic Collection, which got into the possession of National Széchényi Library when the former Slide Film Production Company ceased to exist, turns to be extremely interesting today when we experience the „renaissance” of slide film stories for kids. This unit contains the original photographic and graphic material of slide film stories produced in the past 50 years, either with the aim of tale telling or for educational purposes. Slide films belong to the category of legal deposit in Hungary, thus the National Széchenyi Library has been collecting and preserving them from the very beginning.

A significant amount of the already processed material of certain collection units – the Transylvanian collection, the photos of World War I, the Historical portrait photos and the material of the Historical photo albums - is available and is regularly updated at https://fototer.oszk.hu/.