depict the technical dimensions. Dedicated to one
of photography’s founders, the Muse ́e Nice ́phore
Nie ́pce opened in 1972 in the city where the scien-
tist was born, Chalon-sur-Saoˆne, in central France.
Although Nie ́pce’s collections and cameras were
reunited as soon as 1861, they were not accessible
to the general public for almost a century. This
collection now has over two million photographs,
plus thousands of optical objects, and early appa-
ratus as old as Nie ́pce’s prototypes from 1816. The
Nie ́pce Museum also organizes demonstrations of
camera obscura. The technical advances in the field
continue to form the core of public collections:
Mixing art, science and optics, a unique museum
dedicated to holography was created in Paris on 25
March 1980 as the Muse ́e de l’Holographie.
Photography as Narrative
Many museums and similar institutions that are not
related to the fine arts but to humanities (or historical,
ethnographic, social issues), such as the Red-Cross
Museum (Muse ́e international de la Croix-Rouge) in
Geneva use among other artifacts all kinds of photo-
graphs to represent their duties, mission, and history.
Under the influence of new museology, recent
museums tend to conceive the exhibition of any
kind as a storytelling medium, rather than a place to
see separated elements that only have beauty and
rarity in common.
Since many people tend to believe that photo-
graphs tell the truth about reality, museums depict-
ing photographs play a central role in the social
representation of oneself and others, contributing
to the nation-building and the construction of a
national identity, past and present. As any media,
museums must be seen as places of interpretative
processes and vehicles of ideologies.
Catalogues and Art Books
The role of all museums in supporting photography
and its practitioners has been greatly expanded by the
widespread commitment of institutions to publishing,
often with very little or no profit. Considered an
essential part of scholarship, exhibition catalogues
have burgeoned in the last several decades of the
twentieth century, with many museums publishing
both art books that reproduce via photography,
paintings and other artworks from their permanent
collections and temporary exhibitions. Some profes-
sional photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz or
Patrick Altman (b. 1950) even specialize in the photo-
graphic reproductions of art works into books, post-
cards, and posters. Once relatively rare among the
publication of monographs, books focusing on
photographers are routinely published by museums
to accompany temporary exhibitions. Less common
at the end of the century are publications document-
ing museums’ photography collections. Keeping
abreast of developments in the museum field,
among others, UNESCO publishes a journal in four
editions (English, French, Spanish, Russian),Mu-
seum International, about issues related to museology.A Wave of New Museums
Perhaps coincidental to the celebrations of the
150th anniversary of the birth of photography in
1989, the 1980s were an incredible period of growth
for museums exclusively dedicated to photography,
with numerous openings of new facilities, most the
first ever in their respective countries. While Ireland
had its Gallery of Photography in Dublin since
1978, Iceland’s Reykjavı ́k Museum of Photography
(Ljo ́smyndasafn Reykjavı ́kur) was created in 1981.
In Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, a National
Museum of Photography & Television opened in
1983 to tremendous attendance. In 1984, Denmark
opened in Herning its Danish Museum of Photo-
graphy (Danmarks Fotomuseum), followed in 1987
by the Museet for Fotokunst (Museum of Photo-
graphic Art) in Odense, and later in 1999, a
National Museum of Photography (Det Nationale
Fotomuseum) was launched in Copenhagen.
The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photo-
graphy (CMCP) was created in 1985 from the photo-
graphic division of the archives owned by the
National Film Board of Canada and the National
Gallery of Canada. Uncharacteristic of most mu-
seums, the CMCP began its activities by presenting
rotating exhibitions in various locations, and opened
its own building only in 1992, in Ottawa.
Although its name does not give a clue, the
Muse ́e de l’Elyse ́e in Lausanne, Switzerland, is a
museum solely dedicated to photography. It
opened in 1985, the same year as the Fratelli Ali-
nari Museum of the History of Photography was
inaugurated in Florence, Italy. In Charleroi, Bel-
gium, the Muse ́e de la Photographie was created in- In 1990, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of
Photography was Japan’s first comprehensive art
museum especially devoted to photography and
optical imagery, soon followed by the Nara City
Museum of Photography in 1992.
A first Hungarian Museum of Photography was
opened in Kecskeme ́t in 1991. The following year, in
the United States, the Griffin Museum of Photogra-
phy was created in Winchester, Massachusetts. The
Latvian Museum of Photography was established in
MUSEUMS