PREFACE
Arguably no other collection in the Tropenmuseum is as closely linked to the history of the Institute as the photograph collection. The collection not only provides richly variegated insights into Dutch colonial history but also informs us about the way in which the Colonial Museum, and later the Tropenmuseum, dealt with this history. The photographs that are related to the former Netherlands East Indies form the bulk of the Tropenmuseum’s photographic collection. Approximately 80 per cent of the material comes from the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia. The remaining 20 per cent was taken in Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean Antilles (former Netherlands Antilles) North Africa, India, China, Japan and Europe. In its current form the total collection comprises approximately 485,000 objects that can be broadly divided into five categories: c. 2645 historical photograph albums, c. 325,000 photographs, c. 120,000 negatives made with various techniques, c. 26,000 slides, and another c. 10,000 different objects such as transparencies, picture postcards and photomechanical prints. All in all, a sizeable collection that was brought together from around 1870. Photographs were already being actively collected in the last quarter of the 19th century. The emphasis was on contemporary collecting, so that the images could be used as illustrative documentary or educational material. As the images aged, the photographs were classified as ‘rejected’, because they no longer fulfilled their documentary purpose from a contemporary point of view. During the colonial period the photographic collection was continuously supplemented with new topical material, brought together in great variety by companies, public, private and scientific institutions and individuals. The rejected images were either consigned to the attic or were disposed of. After Indonesia declared independence in 1945, little attention was given to the Dutch colonial past and the historical photographs were temporarily placed 10
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in a vacuum. Instead, the Institute actively collected new visual material to document changes and developments in various regions around the world. It was only from around 1970 that interest in the historical material was reinvigorated, in response to requests from the large group of Indo-Europeans living in the Netherlands who had a nostalgic desire to revisit an important part of their earlier lives by means of the photographs. For them the images portrayed a lost and increasingly romanticised society in which nature and culture played important roles. This need for nostalgic visual material was gradually supplemented with a more academic interest in documentary photographic material. The photographs were a previously unknown source of information for historical research. The appreciation for the historical photographs as objects has changed since the 1980s and they are being collected again with renewed interest. The aesthetics of the photographs and their place in the history of photography also received attention. The photograph collection also started acquiring museal status after a start was made on professionally cataloguing and opening up the collection. This publication is a long-awaited part of this process. It contains 120 photographs, which are discussed within the context of their creation in Indonesia, the Dutch colonial context, and with reference to the museal history of the Netherlands. The first chapter is an introduction to the world of photography and to the photographers who were active in the colonial society in the Netherlands East Indies. The second chapter explains how the collection was built up and used, from the first acquisition in 1876 to the most recent types of digital distribution. It is evident that over the years the photographs have been viewed from a range of different viewpoints. The remaining chapters discuss thematic clusters in the collection, from anthropological, historical and art historical perspectives, to broad topics such as society, commerce and personal themes such as family and portraiture.
PHOTOGR APHS OF THE NETH ERLAN D S EAST I ND I ES
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