1. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives challenges of the new media
Jasenka Ferber Bogdan
Fine Arts Archives
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Heritage Culture and Digital Humanities Conference
Osijek, Croatia
May/19-20/2017

2. Greetings from Osijek! Artists’ correspondence, Fine Arts Archives
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Greetings from Osijek!
Artists’ correspondence, Fine Arts Archives

3. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Digital art history
“…the digitizing, organizing, and devising of metadata are always acts of interpretation, the product of a set of decisions that carry interpretative inflection: they are not neutral or value-free, and each privileges one aspect of a digital artifact at the expense of others…“
Johanna Drucker,
“Is There a ‘Digital’ Art History?” 
Visual Resources 29, 1–2, 2013

4. Digital Collection of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Digital Collection of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
dizbi.hazu.hr
Joint project of several Croatian Academy units
Free access and download, search availability across all units
Versatile materials – books, exhibition catalogues, photographs, art objects, documentation, manuscripts etc.
Complex metadata – standardized authority names, subject terms
Record count:
Metadata:
Number of files:
Stored: GB
items available
through Europeana.

5. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media

6. Digitization of Fine Arts Archives
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Digitization of Fine Arts Archives
Started in 2008 – the earliest and rare catalogues as the base for development of whole digitised collection
One of the several founder units of Digital collection in 2009
Croatian and foreign exhibition catalogs, personal photographs, photographs of art objects and exhibitions
Photographs

7. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Exhibition catalogs

8. Fine Arts Archives’ first virtual exhibition
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Fine Arts Archives’ first virtual exhibition

9. Ullrich Salon archives
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Ullrich Salon archives
First art salon in Zagreb
glassware shop, framing artwork
gallery /
other location
nationalized
Ulrich gallery closed in 2013.
Archival holdings:
3 exhibition register books
2 inventory books (14458 sales records)
2 commission sales books
Numerous books of payments
Correspondence with artists and buyers (ca. 1300) – MS Excel
Exhibition catalogs (35 already on the portal)

10. Primary goals of the digitization project
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Primary goals of the digitization project
Preservation of fragile archival material
Digital presentation of integral books
Enrichment of original documents with metadata - additional research
Expansion of access to scholars who cannot visit the archives
Handwritten exhibition register book

11. Phases / challenges Digitization
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Phases / challenges
Digitization
Transcription – decipher the handwriting, abbreviations
Filling in missing information from other sources
Organization and consistency of complex data
Authors index
Miroslav Kraljević – solo exhibition 1912

12. Exhibitions – data organization
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Exhibitions – data organization

13. Authority names Geographical names persons organizations
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Art object - data organization
Authority names Geographical names persons organizations
Subject terms Secular themes Portrait Panorama, seascape, landscape Interior Still life Nude Religious themes Mythological themes Historical themes
Artist – buyer link

14. Mila Wod - solo exhibition, Salon Ullrich, 1918
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Mila Wod - solo exhibition, Salon Ullrich, 1918
Exhibition catalog
Man and Destiny wood, 37 cm

15. Sculpture sold to art collector Dr. Ivo Tartaglia,
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Sculpture sold to art collector Dr. Ivo Tartaglia,
Miss Žyborska and Salon Ullrich for 250 K

16. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Art object - metadata

17. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Virtual exhibition
Introducing Salon Ullrich to broader cultural audience
Presenting various archival holdings (stock books, correspondence, photographs, catalogs)
Attracting the attention of national and international researchers
Increasing the possibility of further financing the digitization project

18. Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Final results
Analytic and synthetic insights into complex interrelations between artists, art dealers and art collectors – data analysis and visualization as research tools
Contribution to the research of provenance (history of ownership) and catalogue raisonné (complete list of artworks) of Croatian and European artists
Emphasis on the foundational role of the Ullrich salon in the forming of national art market, enabling its positioning in an international context
Contribution to the development of the next step in Croatian art history – from digitizing to digital

19. Useful texts, sites, blogs…
Digitization of the Ullrich Salon archives - challenges of the new media
Useful texts, sites, blogs…
Digital art history in theory J. Drucker, Is There a Digital Art History?, Visual Resources: An international Journal of Documentation, 29, 1-2, 2013 P. B. Jaskot, Review of Debates in the Digital Humanities, Visual Resources 29, 1-2, 2013 P. Fletcher, Reflections on Digital Art History, CAA Reviews, M. Schich, Figuring out Art History, DAH Journal, 2, 2016 Dealer stockbooks at Getty Research Institute portal Blogs M. Baca, A. Helmreich, Introducing Three Digital Art History Case Studies - R. Cuadra, A. Penot, The Goupil Stock Books Project -