Archivo Fotográfico; Biblioteca Nacional Digital de Chile

Overview

The Archivo Fotográfico (Photographic Archive) is a specialized department of the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile devoted to the preservation, research, and dissemination of Chile's photographic heritage. Its digitized collections are accessible through the Biblioteca Nacional Digital (BNd) portal, which serves as the unified digital access platform for all of the National Library's digital collections.

History and Founding

The Archivo Fotográfico was established on 1 August 1997, initially organized around the Fondo Medina collection, which comprised more than 5,000 photographic records from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Over the following decades it grew substantially through acquisitions, donations, and institutional collections. In 2014, an Audiovisual Archive unit was integrated, adding moving image and audio collections. In 2013, at the bicentennial of the National Library's founding, a modern Digitization Laboratory was inaugurated to support systematic digitization and preservation.

Collections and Holdings

The archive holds approximately 400,000 photographs in various formats, plus a digital collection of around 800,000 images (per more recent figures). Collections span the 19th and 20th centuries and document Chile's social, political, cultural, and artistic history. Major collections include works by Antonio Quintana (social and political photography, 1958–1977), Alfredo Molina La Hitte (studio portraits of intellectuals, 1940s–1960s), Armindo Cardoso (presidential tours of the Unidad Popular era), Julio Bertrand Vidal (stereoscopic images, 1905–1914), Luis Ladrón de Guevara (industrial and production photography), Luis Poirot (national figures), and a comprehensive collection of Chilean minutera street photography. The 2024 donation by American photojournalist Michael Mauney added 461 Kodachrome color slides from 1971. An institutional photographic archive from ENEL Chile comprising 19,839 photographs was placed on loan in 2018.

Access

Digitized photographic collections are freely accessible via the Biblioteca Nacional Digital portal and the Memoria Chilena research portal. Researchers may also contact the archive directly for access to materials not yet digitized.