The photographic collection was established in 1979 as a new department of Museum Folkwang in Essen. It received its basis from the study collection assembled by Otto Steinert in 1959–1978, which has since been expanded to around 60,000 photographs. Holdings include the estates of Helmar Lerski, Germaine Krull and Otto Steinert and the archive of Peter Keetman. This book gives insights into the collection and its orientation, presenting photography from different perspectives: motivic, temporal, methodological, medial and material-aesthetic.