The Incredible World of Photography

Started in the 1970s with a flea market find, over the past decades Ruth and Peter Herzog collection now encompasses no fewer than five hundred thousand artifacts. Ranging from the early days of the medium in 1839 to the 1970s, the collection’s holdings span the complete history of analog photography, reflecting its manifold developments and physical materials, its plates, emulsions, chemical agents, papers, and devices.

The innumerable masterworks by anonymous photographers in the Herzogs’ collection throw light on an overwhelming abundance of motifs and themes from around the globe, in addition to pieces by well-known pioneers of the medium.