Artistic photography at the fin de siècle.

Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum and Norsk museum for fotografi – Preus fotomuseum invite members of the public and the press to visit the “Picturesque Photography” exhibition.

In recent years, photography has gained increasing acceptance as an art form from museums and galleries. This would not have been possible without the developments in the relationship between photography and other pictorial arts that occurred at the fin de siècle. In those days, a number of photographers modelled their work on paintings, and the resulting discussions and opinions concerning photography as an art form formed a basis for an ongoing debate which has continued right up to the present day. The “Painterly Photography” exhibition features some of the highlights of European and American photography of the time.

The “Painterly Photography” exhibition focuses on photographs that deliberately set out to achieve a picturesque effect, reflecting artistic trends of the 1880s and 1890s such as Impressionism, Neo-Romanticism and Symbolism. Far from reproducing images as close as possible to reality, these photographs seek neither to document nor to illustrate a particular theme, focusing instead on personal expression. As painting strived for simplicity in the form of decorative and abstract pictorial effects, these photographs represented a serious rival.

The simplification and dissolution of solid objects into surfaces and lines, in particular, is what makes these photographs worthy of the epithet “painterly”. The exhibition underlines a point that has often been overlooked: that there is a history of different styles in photography, just as much as in other forms of pictorial art.

As we are seeing at the end of the 20th century, artists at the end of the 19th century were preoccupied with style and changing fashions, and depicted both themselves and their surroundings.

“Picturesque Photography” has been organised by Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum in association with Norsk museum for fotografi – Preus fotomuseum. In 1994 the Norwegian State acquired the museum built up by Leif Preus in Horten, which is now Norway’s national museum of photography. One of the principal duties of the museum is to promote the artistic aspects of our photographic heritage. This exhibition presents a selection of 102 photographs, including key works by photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Heinrich Kühn – all of whom had some of the most distinctive and prominent artistic profiles in the history of photography as an art form.

Through this exhibition, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum and Norsk museum for fotografi – Preus fotomuseum wish to demonstrate that the Vestfold region boasts two museums of which each is unique in its own way: Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum through its superb gallery space, and Norsk museum for fotografi – Preus fotomuseum through its collection, which is one of the few Norwegian museum collections containing a significant proportion of art of international importance.

A catalogue for the exhibition is to be published and will be distributed to editors.

Jan Åke Petterson

Director, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum

Øivind Storm Bjerke

Director, Norsk museum for fotografi – Preus fotomuseum