Oslo Museum manages one of the country's largest photo collections as well as a large collection of paintings and Oslo portraits and a rich collection of artefacts.
The museum collects all types of cultural-historical material that sheds light on the city's history: photos, art, maps, objects, books, film, sound and archives. Documentation of today's city is also an important area of focus.
Oslo Museum has one of Norway's largest and most important photo collections with an estimated one and a half million photographs. The photo collection consists of everything from negative archives by professional photographers such as Szacinski, Rude and Ørnelund, to individual photos and albums from private individuals.
The approximately 10,000 Oslo negatives of Anders B. Wilse are the most famous and used part of the collection. Other well-known photographer names include Ole Tobias Olsen, Per A. Thorén, Olaf Væring, Thorkel Thorkelsen, Inger Munch, Rigmor Dahl Delphin, Esther Langberg, Sverre Heiberg and Henrik Ørsted.
The museum is continuously working on cataloging and digitizing the photo collection.
oslobilder.no
oslobilder.no is a pure image database consisting of a wide selection of images from Oslo. The website is a collaboration between Oslo byarkiv, Oslo Museum, Norsk Teknisk Museum, Norsk Folkemuseum, Arbeiderbevegelsens arkiv og bibliotek, Telemuseet and the University Library in Bergen.
Oslo Museum has around 85,000 searchable photographs and art objects at oslobilder.no
If you cannot find a photo you are looking for, you can try digitaltmuseum.no or contact us at foto@oslomuseum.no.
Oslo Museum's art collection is a unique cultural-historical source of the city's visual history. The collection includes around 1,500 paintings and around 12,000 watercolours, graphics and drawings and around 300 busts, reliefs and sculptures.
The motives show Oslo's growth and development, topography, houses and streets, folk life and portraits of people who have lived and worked in the city. The works are collected based on their cultural-historical value.
In the art collection we find works by both lesser-known and well-known artists such as Edvard Munch, Peder Balke, Christian Krohg, Oda Krohg, Fritz Thaulow, Axel Revold, Kitty Kielland and Asta Nørregaard.
The museum's rich artefact collection consists of around 35,000 objects. Only just under ten percent are shown in the exhibitions at any given time. Some are also loaned to public and private institutions.
In the collection we find, among other things, furniture from bourgeois Christiania homes, chandeliers, crockery and a large collection of kitchen utensils. Dresses, uniforms and other textiles also form a large part of the collection. Most of the objects have been given to the museum as gifts or originate from the donor's home or working life.