The Graphic Archive was created at the same time as the Museum itself. It is derived from the graphic material that the Archaeological Society had collected since its creation in 1894 and deposited in the Museum after its foundation in 1927.
From that time onwards, the Museum's collection grew continuously and steadily. This developed with the Museum's participation in the Archaeological and Artistic Cataloguing of Galicia, in collaboration with the Pedro Barrié de la Maza Foundation in the 1970s, or with the Inventory of the Movable Property of the Catholic Church in Galicia at the end of the 20th century. Other ways of incorporating graphic collections are donations, deposits and acquisitions.
The Graphic Archive holds images from the 1960’s to the present day, taken in the most diverse formats and techniques such as the daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes, in addition to other photographic procedures that were developed over time such as albumens, platinum prints, cyanotypes, carbons, autochromes, etc. It also conserves negatives and glass or acetate plates and albums, as well as a series of objects related to the activity.
The list of photographers in the collection is extensive. The long list of names that mark the portraits in carte de visite format of the mid-19th century, such as Disderi, Antonio da Fonseca, Fredricks y Daries, Alviach, Alonso Martínez and Pica-Groom, can be added to the professionals who worked in Galicia throughout history, such as Ramón Buch, Bocconi, Prósperi, Palmero, Francisco Zagala, Lorenzo Novás, Joaquín Pintos, Pacheco, Ksado and José Suárez. Amateurs such as Julio Fernández de los Ríos, José Bellver, Corona González y Santos and those who practised photography of a more artistic nature, including Manuel Buch, Juan Manuel Castuera, Vari Caramés, Xulio Gil and Tino Martínez.
Apart from photography, this branch of the archive also manages other graphic materials such as films, including Miss Ledya, a work by José Gil in 1916, the original of which the Museum has deposited at the Spanish Film Library, videos in different formats and media, posters, postcards, prints on different themes and collections of ephemera (stickers, stamps, reminders, calendars, etc.).
Museo de Pontevedra