65,000 photos of art digitised
Bent Petersen (1939-2011) snapped away with his camera at vernissages, happenings and exhibitions. For him art was life, you can see that in his many photos of art, which we have digitised.
Photo: Det Kgl. Bibliotek
Published 22 April 2024 | Revision 09 September 2024
22 April 2024
Art collector and publisher Bent Petersen's slide collection has come online in Digital Collections. These are approximately 65,600 slides primarily of Danish art and artistic life from the beginning of the 1970s to the end of the 1980s. One gets the impression that Bent Petersen photographed almost everything he saw of art. It is an absolutely unique collection that provides an invaluable insight into Danish art.
Since the summer of 2023, we have worked on digitising the extensive slide collection. Here are pictures of individual works, exhibition hangings, vernissages, snapshots of situations, performances and happenings. With the digitisation, we ensure that the slide collection will not disappear and that it will become more accessible.
Facts: Bent Petersen and art
Bent Petersen, who died in 2011, aged 72, was a person extremely dedicated to art. He was a trained teacher, but in 1976 he founded (together with his colleague Poul Henning Petersen and the artist Henrik Have) the art magazine North Art Magazine and, in connection with this, also an exhibition space in Copenhagen. In the 1990s, Petersen handed over his extensive slide collection to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' Library - which today forms part of the Royal Danish Library.