Ten thousand theatre images

Holger Damgaard (1870-1945), press photographer at Politiken, was the first in Denmark to systematically photograph what was being performed on Danish theatre stages. With his ten thousand theatre images for the period 1909-1940, he has created a unique visual history of Danish theatre. Through Damgaard's images, one can see how the new advances in stage technique of the 1910s took shape. For example, they show how the actors' space on stage was expanded when the stage could be illuminated more evenly, and how the plays of female playwrights were staged when they stormed onto Danish theatre stages from the 1880s onwards. The images also contrast the stage experiments of the 1920s with the pronounced visual realism that characterised the majority of Danish theatre. In the images from the 1930s, one can see how modernism made its way through together with the political movements that were in full swing in many other European countries.

Today, theatre photographs are often used to encapsulate the mood of a play, and they are typically produced before the premiere. But Damgaard's theatre photographs depict the productions in a completely different way: he documented. That is, it was often the entire stage image that was taken with the set en face. Therefore, Damgaard's images, with their great wealth of detail, are a true goldmine for researchers today. The systematic documentation also makes them unique in an international context, and they are now digitally accessible to everyone and free from copyright.

Students from Dramaturgy at Aarhus University have participated in the first phase of metadata in a crowdsourcing experiment that makes it possible to search for images of, for example, a specific actor.

Cross-aesthetic experiments and international trends

The stage experiments of the 1920s contrasted with the pronounced visual realism that characterised most of Danish theatre.

Female playwrights on the stage

In the 1910s, female playwrights such as Emma Gad and Olga Ott focused on major social issues such as divorce and the consequences of war, leaving their mark on the Danish theatre scene.

Modernism makes its way into Danish theatre

Holger Damgaard's theatre images from the 1930s show how modernism and new political movements, which were in full bloom in many European countries, made their way to Denmark.