After(-)Images: Problematizing Collections of Early Documentary Photography in the Art Museum

Abstract

Though the Stedelijk was the location of the first international photography exhibition in the Netherlands in 1908, the museum only began collecting photography in 1958. Following in the footsteps of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), which had already begun collecting photography in 1930 and would establish a dedicated department in 1940 under the watchful eye of curator and photographer Beaumont Newhall, the Stedelijk embarked on the path of creating the first public photography collection in an art museum in the Netherlands sixty-three years after the museum opened its doors to the public for the very first time.