Photo Archives
The photo collection of the Ferenc Nádasdy Museum has been documenting events of the town and its surroundings, the local history and changes since 1957. Its creation is linked to the first full-time director, Géza Nógrády.
Géza Nógrádi, ethnologist and a person with extraordinary organisational skills recognised already at the time of his appointment that photos not only capture family moments, but are also inevitable in the work at museums. In accordance with his interest he first took photos with ethnologic motives, yet he very soon expanded his range of motives thus laying the foundation of a unique source collection. The museum considers one of its main tasks to use, enumerate and publish it.
Following the death of Géza Nógrádi in the year 1973 it was his colleague, Zsuzsa Novák, to take over the hard and attention requiring work of documenting. Following her strenuous efforts, the photo collection of the museum totals nearly 50 thousand images and there is no town event which would not be photographed. The collection includes photos of events, people, buildings and objects of art. The museum was forced to cancel the development of the collection after the retirement of Mrs Novák.
The glass negatives of Mátyás Trinkl, who ran a photo shop in the period between the two world wars, is also part of the collection. We mainly have portraits which is especially important, as the inhabitants of the town and the surrounding areas frequented the shop of Mr Trinkl and this provides the most direct impetus to discovering the personal history of the town. The museum counts on the selfless help of the inhabitants to identify the people on the photos.