Since the 1970s, she has specialized on portraits of authors in particular. At fotoarchiv-ohlbaum.bsb-muenchen.de the pictures of the artist can now be viewed, searched and licensed.

The photographs in the picture portal are digitized prints or negatives on the one hand, which were digitized by Isolde Ohlbaum herself in the course of the years. On the other hand, the portal contains digital pictures, because Ms. Ohlbaum switched to digital photography starting in 2010. The pictures were taken between 1975 and 2022. They show German and international authors in individual portraits, as well as at readings, awards ceremonies or book fairs. Among them, there are numerous Nobel Prize laureates, such as Peter Handke, Herta Müller, Doris Lessing, Elfriede Jelinek, Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass and Imre Kertész. The digital collection is rounded off by various city views, pictures of graveyards, sculptures and flowers.

The portal can be searched by full-text search or by using filter facets. In addition to the person shown in the picture, filters include the year of creation, country, location, subject terms, institutions, events, colour or orientation of the photo.

Up to the end of 2025, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek will successively acquire Ohlbaum's entire photographic work, composed of black-and-white negatives, colour slides, prints and image files. The archive also includes selected letter exchanges with important persons of literary and artistic life who were portrayed by Isolde Ohlbaum.

The transition of the archive to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek takes place in four parts up to the end of 2025. Following the first and the second transfer, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek currently preserves around 176,000 analogue photographs in addition to the 21,000 digital pictures. The picture portal is expanded continuously.

Dr. Klaus Ceynowa, Director General of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek:

With the launch of the picture portal, we are making one of Europe's most important contemporary-historical photo archives usable and help the unique work of Isolde Ohlbaum become visible internationally.

Picture portal of the photographic archive Ohlbaum
https://fotoarchiv-ohlbaum.bsb-muenchen.de

About the Image Archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
The Image Archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek comprises over 19 million images of a predominantly documentary character and with a contemporary historical emphasis. It is the largest image archive held by any public-sector institution in Germany. The main stock is constituted by the photo archive of the journal stern including more than 15 million pictures, which was taken over in 2019. The image archive will be digitized gradually and selectively.
Collections > Photographic archives

Press release for download  (PDF, 119 KB)  (in German)

Contact

Dr. Cornelia Jahn
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Department of Maps and Images
Ludwigstrasse 16, 80539 Munich
Phone  +49 89 28638-2287
cornelia.jahn@bsb-muenchen.de

Ulrike Rehusch
D/Communication
Phone  +49 89 28638-2057
presse@bsb-muenchen.de