Previous uploads
Mar 27, 2025
Sring Edition
This selection from images of more than seventy donors add up to a sort of „Spring Exhibition”. From Béla Bartók to György Petri, from Paris to Brasov, from the the Soviet Republic of 1919 to the great snowfall of '87. Artists’ studios, galleries, trenches, the first May 1st parade, Children's Defence League, a Danube warship, a scout jamboree. Jesuit missionaries, climbers in the Alps, volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Northern Transylvania, Bačka (now in Serbia), bombing of Kolozsvár (now Cluj, Romania) and of Budapest. New university in Veszprém, 1956 events in colour. First trips to the West, tourists and emigrants, long weekends with backpacks. The best way to fight forgetfulness in spring: Fortepan!
Oct 3, 2024
Old Photos for New Year
4000 photos from the 20th century, which is becoming more and more distant. The most interesting frames from authors' estates and collections in this year's last edition of Fortepan. Everyday life without wars and revolutions, politicians, explorers, actors and sportsmen. In their place, big barbecues, dawn fishing, rock climbing, school exams and boring May Day parades. That's what we used to be. Us, too.
Aug 29, 2024
2 photographers - 2 stories
In the Fresh edition you can see pictures by architect László Csaba and by photojournalist Imre Prohászka. The only connection between the two authors is that they both took photographs during the socialist period. László Csaba has taken thousands of slides on his travels in Europe and South America, mostly of contemporary modern buildings and landmark buildings. His photographs can be seen as an architect's inspiration diary, while he also documented his own designs here at home. Imre Prohászka photographed traffic "emergencies" in Budapest as a photographer for the long-forgotten National Council for Traffic Safety. Pipe bursts, heavy snowfalls, children running after a bus, a broken down tram or a traffic jam on the Grand Boulevard in Budapest. Their respective oeuvres were arranged side by side by chance, but both are important for understanding the dull, sardonic Kádár era.
May 15, 2024
Our XXth Century
4400 photos from dozens of families, authors and donors. Forgotten photos, others left behind, from a newly bought apartment, from some spring clearances, from an emigré Hungarian's legacy. Our authors this time were mainly amateur photographers, mostly taking photos on family holidays and trips. As curious citizens, they photographed from motorbikes in Rome in the 1930s, during the reattachment of Northern Transylvania, on their first post-1956 trip to Western Europe, or as émigrés in Paris. There seems to be no connection between the pictures. But you can have a look at them as if they were taken from one long negative. To quote Ildikó Enyedi's film title, this is what "Our 20th Century" might have been.
Mar 12, 2024
Pictures of a Budapest citizen
The author of the nearly a thousand photos shown here is Dezső Bor, a Budapest city official and founding conductor of the Municipal Symphony Orchestra. As an amateur photographer, the author followed with his camera the classic life situations and locations of the urban middle class. His photographs show typical moments of everyday life in the 1920s and 1930s: big snowfalls, social sports, the demolition of the Taban quarter, the pavilions of the International Fair, boy scouts at the Gödöllő jamboree, rowing races on the Danube, woodcutters and stonecutters, street painters and fairground vendors. His well-composed photographs reveal a skilled author, with an eye trained by the photographic magazines of the period. Dezső Bor's photographs, taken on trips to the Upper Hungary (now Slovakia) and Austria, on excursions in Hungary and walks in Budapest, or in the family circle, are harmonious, humane and vivid impressions of the bourgeois world and the world view between the two wars.
Feb 2, 2024
Budapest Crime Scenes '70
This selection features crime scenes from the Budapest of the early 1970s. Were were allowed to browse a special part of the Budapest City Archives, where tens of thousands of similar photos survive only on negative frames. The pictures were taken by unknown photographers of the Criminal Technical Department of the Police Headquarters. In our selection, you can see a total of 1000 images from 1971 and 1972. The pictures show less or not at all known parts of Budapest: the world of the suburbs and that of the outskirts. Broken shops, shop windows, tobacconists, offices, apartments, even safes and church bushes. Murder and suicide scenes. Stolen cars, or just dismantled wheels, a robbed school storage, or a bicycle repair shop. Traffic accidents, overturned cranes, derailed trains, crashed small planes appear in the series. Particularly notable are the photos of political graffiti, hardly ever photographed by anyone but the police. This photo legacy of that police department is perhaphs the most dramatic section of Fortepan. Some images are only available to readers over 18.
Dec 11, 2023
József Fábián’s photos
A selection of tens of thousands of Fábián's legacy mostly includes reports and private photographs by the author. His professional oeuvre is of four kinds. His most significant shots document the training pf hairdressers, and generally of hairdressing as a profession in Hungary. Countless hairdressing competitions, hairdressing workshops and exams are featured in the photos, of which we have tried to make a representative (but far from complete) compilation. Somewhat related to the hairdressing theme is the fashion and fashion model photography part of the legacy, with fashion shows and advertising shots for magazines. In addition to his career as a hairdresser and fashion photographer, József Fábián also left a significant oeuvre as a city photographer. From the mid-fifties onwards, he was commissioned by some construction companies in Budapest, to take photoseries of apartment building renovations. His series on the construction sites of the civic buildings and the foyers of the Buda Castle are particularly interesting and valuable. Apart from to images of hairdressing, fashion and architecture, we included quite a few shots taken during the author's travels, visits in fairs and the ones documenting family excursions. In addition to the report photos, the private photographer Fábián also appears in pictures together with family and friends in typical locations of the sixties: football grounds, beaches, parades, walking in the streets in the countryside, in Budapest or abroad. We thank József Fábián’s family and the Artfókusz company for sharing the negatives with us. Another important author has been added to the visual memory of Hungary!
Nov 9, 2023
The photos taken in Budapest on behalf of Brück and Sohn, postcard publishers
A selection from the photos taken in Budapest, between 1903 and 1912, on behalf of Brück and Sohn, postcard publishers. The German company published more than 500 postcards on the Hungarian capital, the photo versions of which have survived in the company archive. The present compilation is part of that corpus - by now guarded in Deutsche Fotothek, Dresden.
Oct 1, 2023
Long weekends
Weekends and public holidays, or what did people do when they did not work? Photos on processions, priestly ordinations, concerts of alternative rock bands (called „Committee” or „Galloping Coroners”), vacations and family walks in Budapest.
Jun 14, 2023
A hundred years of intriguing photos
A compilation from over fifty donors, 4000 fresh images has been added to Fortepan. Nothing less than a grandiose summer puzzle: family albums and frames from negative rolls: familiar venues, scenes and situations. Concerning the “who-where-what-when” and other questions, we are eager to hear the answers in the Forum group. But there is no need to provide dates and venues in order to peep, to browse or to remember. We wish a great vacation to all out time travellers!
Apr 21, 2023
Photos of Károly Lipovits
The life of a college student, and that of a small town school in Western Hungary, in the 1950s and 60s, through the lens of Károly Lipovits, PE teacher. 1200 photos of children and youngsters, from the decades of socialism.
Mar 17, 2023
40 years - 4000 images
The decades of Communist Hungary, through the lens of non-professional photographers and of families, images of photojournalists, industrial photographers, photos of a film director, of a Communist-era mayor and of a writer.
Dec 7, 2022
50 Donors, 5000 New Images on Fortepan
What was we happened to see of the past in 2022? Paramount photos of families, photographers, collectors, selected by the Fortepan team. A century, glanced from a hundred points of view, on 5000 photos “hitherto never seen”
Oct 16, 2022
Photos of József Horváth cameraman, reporter
1300 photographs from the legacy of a filmmaker. Hungary in the middle of the grim, fateful 20th century, through the camera of a correspondent with a personal touch. Shifting borders, the defeat of the Hungarian army at the river Don, and the family stories of József Horváth in black and white and colour.
Aug 19, 2022
Two authors – Two Thousand Images
The most important photos from two legacies, those of György Faragó, photo journalist, and of Krisztián Gyulai Gaál, director of photography, respectively. Two thousand photos from the Communist period, on football fields, hikers, concerts and friends. Everyday life and propaganda, through the cameras of two photographers, both with a personal touch of their own kind.
Jun 19, 2022
The Photo Legacy of József Reményi
The focus of this collection is the photo journal of first lieutenant József Reményi. The author, a logistics officer of a hospital train, was part of Eastern front missions in 1942/43 altogether 17 times. During this time, he took hundreds of photos on the life of the hospital train and the wartime days in the Ukraine.
May 21, 2022
Travels in Europe
A compilation from the photo collection of the University of Milwaukee.Travels from England to Greece, from Paris – through Budapest and Cluj – to Warsaw. Street vendors, craftsmen and city dwellers in a Europe divided by régimes and dictatorships, through the lens of professional photojournalists — among them Harrison Foreman, correspondent of the New York Times.
Apr 3, 2022
3000 sharp images
from the blurred 20th century. We have selected pictures from over forty donors. Recurrent, but never boring venues, situations, places, from some haphazardly related negative rolls
Feb 11, 2022
3000 Photos from the FOMTERV Archive
Selected from the archive of FŐMTERV (Municipal Civil Engineering Design Company). The grand construction projects of the Kádár Era. Over-and underpasses in Budafok, Pesterzsébet, the streets of Zugló, markets, bus depots and blocs soon to be demolished. The archive of a large construction company, preserved in an exemplary manner.
Dec 21, 2021
2700 New Photos
In this series we have included some of the best negatives from twenty different donors. It is through home-made, amateur snapshots that we can let you have a glance at the dramatic 20th century, nobody can ever get tired of.The first journey to the West, or the very first rented apartment, taken on the first roll of film. 2700 meaningful photos, recording negligible moments.
Nov 7, 2021
2200 Prints
In this series you can browse images scanned from printed photos from over 60 donors. Apart from family albums we represent here some larger collections: the legacy of György Révész, film director, the photos of the Red Army taken in 1945, the aviation archive of Ferenc Nasztanovics, and the local history photos covering Subotica, Serbia (Szabadka in Hungarian).
Sep 18, 2021
FŐFOTÓ - 2nd edition
Below you can find the second, concluding part of what we have chosen from the FŐFOTO (Municipal Photo Company) archive, the continuation of the spring instalment. You’ll find 2200 images, focusing on three subjects: film posters and hand-painted film ads on large canvases, advertising and fashion photos from the advent of Hungarian advertising photography, street photography block by block, from the inner districts of Budapest. Several hundreds of colour photos, on classic modern buildings, on products impossible to sell, on clothes difficult not to smile at. Professional photos from a DIY world.
Jul 11, 2021
Our Most Recent Old Photos Summer '21
This time we have uploaded 2200 photos from 22 donors to the Fresh section of Fortepan. Apart from the ever familiar amateur photo legacies (ones we can never grow tired of), we included images from the oeuvre of two of our pivotally important photo journalists, of Zoltán Szalay and Tamás Urbán. Moreover, we selected close to 400 photos from the WWI collection of the National Library of Austria.
May 12, 2021
Our Most Recent Old Photos
Have a look at 2300 hitherto unknown images from 65 donors in the “Fresh” section of Fortepan. If we place the images from family albums and negative rolls close to one another, we can sort of stroll along the entire 20th century. Here you can find our highly personal selection, the subject of which is human being and human passing. Holidays, relocation calamities, uniforms, public and private holidays. Transit employees, emigrants, pioneers. Our earlier selves – all this once happened to us.
Apr 1, 2021
FŐFOTÓ I.
Have a look at the 60s and the 70s through the cameras of Budapest Municipal Photography Company (FŐFOTO). Out of a legacy of more than 200 000 negatives, we have uploaded about 5000 frames. In this first instalment there are street photos, building- and street views, images of hotels, espressos, and workplace interiors. Also, we have included several hundred outdoor movie ads, uniquely produced to fit the sites, fences, tram stops, or notice boards. Also, this special collection abounds in advertising and fashion photos – often survived on colour negatives. If you are interested in the design history of the period, you mustn’t miss all this.
Feb 25, 2021
Sándor Kereki
Sándor Kereki was born in Budapest in 1952 and started photographing at the age of 16. On his images, grotesque as well as emotional scenes come to life from the everyday life of socialist Hungary in the 70s. After fifty years he decided to pulish his images that depict the world of a street photographer focusing primarily on people, special figures and odd characters. From the thousands of negatives taken by him over ten years, we selected 1,850 photographs for Fortepan and we also recommend to check out our hundred favorite Kereki photos.