About Photography House

The website of Photography House, the center for research and documentation of local photography, was established by MUZA Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, with the participation of Mifal Hapais Council for Culture and Art, and is a fulfillment of the vision of Guy Raz, MUZA’s photography curator.

Photography House is an online site that acts as a center for information, research and access to the history of photography in this country from its beginnings up to the present day. The initiative cooperates with photographers, archives, researchers and curators in Israel to give the general public access to the history of photography and the contribution of photographers in Israel to local and worldwide society and culture.

Already in the early years of the state, photographer Shmuel Yosef Schweig wanted to consolidate the Zionist Archives. Attempts to set up a similar center were made in the 1980s by Micha Bar-Am and Dalia Amotz, and in the early 2000s by Rona Sela and Guy Raz.

The establishment of Photography House is a natural continuation of Raz’s work, including editing issue 113 of Studio magazine (2000), which dealt with the history of local photography and included a proposal to set up a physical center for preservation and research of local photography, and his book Photographers in Palestine / Eretz Israel / Israel (Map – Mapping and Publishing & Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Tel-Aviv, 2003), which was the first attempt to make a comprehensive survey of the history of photography in Palestine and Israel from 1855–2000. The book is in the form of a lexicon, including 200 biographies of photographers and nearly 500 photos. 

Over the years Eretz Israel Museum has mounted many exhibitions on photographers and the history of local photography, while handling the important photography collections held at the Museum and setting up an archive for the conservation and registration of negatives and collections.

The Photography House website cooperates with other photography archives in the country, and will be involved in the publication of past and future research, news updates and more. Photography House will also initiate conservation projects and new research projects, and the creation of a visual and written infrastructure covering 170 years of local photography and photographers, alongside iconic photographs etched in the collective memory of Israel. The site also contains a historical survey of photography in the land of Israel, period by period, and a selection of essays by leading writers on photography in the country. We hope that the future will see the establishment of a physical building for the Photography House.

 

The site was created with assistance from Mifal Hapais