In the can!

The three floors of the House from Queck are dedicated to an exhibition about the history of the photography and film industry in Hesse since the beginnings of photography. The ground floor accommodates a photo shop typical of rural and small-town Hesse between the 1920s and 1960s. The shop included a studio for taking portrait pictures, a photo lab for the development of negatives and the enlargement of pictures, as well as a repair shop for broken cameras.

The most important object in the studio is an original backdrop from 1900 from a Hessian photo shop. The set-up of the photo shop allows visitors to learn about every stage of the creation of a picture – from buying a camera, to the making and production of a photograph as well as the repair of a camera.

Since the mid-19th century, over seventy photography related companies can be traced in Hesse. Every single company with its products and history is presented on the first floor of the House from Queck. Some businesses have existed for decades, others had only a short life span. What economic, social or political currents influenced their success or failure? Hardly any producers manufactured their products entirely on their own. Most procured parts from other manufacturers. The production of camera lenses was a particularly important industry in Hesse. In some instances, it can be difficult to draw the lines between individual firms because some had shares in other producers. Some employees ran their own, parallel business ventures and some companies had family ties.

The products and company histories illustrate 150 years of economic history in Hesse and German history in general. Some manufacturers in Hesse also produced projectors and had shares in film companies, and therefore had ties to the film industry. The exhibition on the top floor provides an overview of film and television in Hesse. Here, one can watch productions by TaunusFilm GmbH and Hessischer Rundfunk (Hesse Broadcasting). In addition, the exhibition also covers documentary film making, video journalism, amateur films in Hesse and the Deutsches Filmmuseum (German Film Museum) in Frankfurt. This segment of the exhibition is concluded with an original backdrop for a clay animation film and two puppets from the Augsburger Puppenkiste puppet theatre.