Photographic Archive of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte

The archive is housed within the historic building on Königsplatz in Munich, which formerly served as the Administrative Building of the National Socialist Party. Following World War II, this specific building was utilized by the American military government as the Munich Central Collecting Point starting in June 1945. The facility's original mission was the restitution of looted art confiscated by the Nazi regime across Europe. The ZI has occupied this historic structure since its founding, integrating the archive into a site of significant post-war cultural and political history.

The Photothek boasts approximately 900,000 media units, comprising around 770,000 black-and-white prints, many of which are historically valuable images from the second half of the 19th century, alongside a large number of color slides and negatives. The collection is organized into five sections and includes distinct special collections such as the estate of Erich Meyer and the Schrey collection. A unique strength of the archive is its extensive source material related to the art trade, including annotated auction catalogs from the Munich auction house, which are of particular interest for provenance and art market research.

As a study collection, the Photothek plays a vital role in art historical research, providing visual documentation that complements the institute's extensive library of over 650,000 volumes. While the archive has limited rights to reproduce its collections due to copyright restrictions, it provides digital copies for study and publication purposes upon request for images where copyright has expired or where the archive holds the rights. The inclusion of the 'Bildarchiv der deutschen Kunst' and specialized provenance materials makes it an indispensable resource for scholars investigating German art and the history of the art market.