Polfoto JP/Politikens Hus A/S

Polfoto

Website: www.polfoto.dk

Partner profile

POLFOTO is the leading photo agency in Denmark founded in 1959, and our archives dates back to the 1860s. POLFOTO is a part of Denmark’s media group JP/Politiken, which publishes three of Denmark’s largest newspapers: Politiken (founded in 1884), Ekstra Bladet (founded in 1904) and Jyllands Posten (founded in 1871). Thus POLFOTO represents some of the most award winning photographers in the world. POLFOTO is the exclusive agent for Associated Press and Corbis in Denmark, and cooperates with a long list of talented freelance photographers and more than 80 photo agencies around the world. POLFOTO consists of a news service, which supplies the Danish newspapers with photos, and a sales department which supplies customers of all kinds with photos of high quality. 

Partner contribution to the project

POLFOTO’s contribution to the EUROPEANA project is 23.000 images taken by the first press photographer in Denmark Holger Damgaard. He is credited as the first employed press photographer in Denmark with a very famous image of three poor children in front of a shop from 1908. Together with some other images by Damgaard, the image is considered as among the most important when it comes to early Danish photography. As the only photographer at the newspaper Politiken he covered everything, and his images shows all part of society in the period 1908-1940.

The rest of the contribution will consist of approx 2.000 images taken by Holger Damgaards student Tage Christensen. These images, taken in the period 1927-37, give a view on all the social and cultural changes in Denmark through the depression. Among the masterpieces there is reason to pinpoint Christensens famous image of Josephine Baker from 1927 when she visited Denmark. The image shows Baker with her banana shirt, crossed arms and cross eyed. The image became part of the Danish cultural debate when it was published in Politiken in 1927.

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