#Exhibit of the Month

The main parts of the camera include the body, bellows, lens, and viewfinder system. The body consists of two lacquered walnut wood frames, joined by a folding black textile bellows that allows the necessary extension for focusing. On the front panel is the Agfa anastigmat lens, mounted in a Compur-type shutter produced by F. Deckel in Munich. It features a foldable "brilliant" viewfinder for both portrait and landscape orientation. It uses glass photographic plates coated with a photographic emulsion, mounted in walnut wood holders, with a frame size of 9x12 cm.
The walnut wood model, considered the flagship "Agfa Isolar Luxus," was designed by the A.H. Rietzschel factory in Munich, acquired by AGFA in 1925, which continued producing this type of camera under its own name until the late 1920s.
The piece was restored by Mihail Culașco, Restoration Department of NMHM.
Brief History of the Camera
The history of the camera spans 200 years, evolving from the camera obscura to today's digital devices. Key milestones include: the first permanent photograph in 1826 by French physicist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, using a wooden box and a plate coated with bitumen of Judea; the invention of the first photographic process - daguerreotype - in 1839 by Frenchman Louis Daguerre, marking the official birth of photography; the invention of calotype, based on the negative/positive principle, by British physicist and chemist Fox Talbot; the invention of wet collodion plates by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer and dry glass plates by Richard Leach Maddox and John Huds Bennet; the introduction of flexible roll film and the launch of the first Kodak camera by American inventor George Eastman; the release of the first 35 mm film camera by German company "Leica"; the launch of the first instant camera "Polaroid," invented by American Edwin Land. Finally, starting in 1975, this path led to the digital photography revolution. Each successive step made cameras smaller and faster, significantly improving image quality.
The first photographic studio in Chișinău was opened in 1854 by Eduard Glewski, and before World War I, there were already about 100 photography studios in Bessarabia.
The collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova includes over 30 cameras, made in Austria, Germany, France, USSR, Japan, and China, dating from the late 19th century to the 2000s. Among them are folding bellows cameras, BOX-type cameras, single-lens reflex (SLR) and twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, as well as digital (DSLR) cameras.

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Exhibitions

“Victor Rotaru: Reflections in Colors”

September 21 – October 31, 2023

On September 21, in Room no. 1 of the National Museum of History of Moldova, will take place the opening of a unique exhibition, entitled "Victor Rotaru: Reflections in Colors" which includes an impressive number of paintings by the plastic artist, collected and kept by the Kliuchnikoff family, most of which will be exhibited to the general public for the first time.

Victor Rotaru (1949-2020) is a prominent name in the world of Moldovan art. From an early age, he showed an artistic nature, discovering his special talent for drawing. Although they had in front of them a promising future artist, the times in which he grew up were marked by the strictly ideological demands of socialist realism, imperative in the Soviet period.

However, Victor Rotaru chose a less conventional path. Instead of joining the socialist realism movement, he preferred to maintain his artistic integrity and make a living in another way. He worked as an assistant stage designer at the "Moldova-film" Studio and later at the "Maria Bieșu" Opera and Ballet Theatre. He was also a painting and drawing teacher at children's art schools in the villages around Chisinau. It was a brave decision to give up his career as an artist, simply to stay true to his own artistic vision and not submit to the ideological pressures of the era.

During his career, Victor Rotaru revealed his artistic influences, inspired by artists such as Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso and Dali, from impressionism and post-impressionism. Today, Victor Rotaru's works retain the imprint of the difficult times in which he lived, but each of them conveys a deep philosophical message, reflecting his artistic essence. His compositions are unique in their energy and dynamics, as well as in their color combinations. They reflect the experiences and personality of an artist who said: "Loneliness is my way of being. I am a sentimental nature. Feelings, sometimes full of light, sometimes abysmal, guide me all my life."

Victor Rotaru cared a lot about his family, he had special relationships with his parents and sisters. He was an open person, he liked guests and soulful conversations. They were colleagues and close friends with Tudor Braga, Andrei Sârbu, Petru Jereghe and Mihai Țăruș.

In the creative activity, he manifested himself in portraiture, still life, genre painting, but also in scenography. Having to create and confirm himself under the restrictive conditions of the Soviet regime, he was an artist with a difficult fate, because he did not want to promote socialist realism in art. In this situation it was practically impossible to survive as a painter and for this reason he retired. He regretted wasting a lot of time...

"When I realized that I would never be able to reach Mihai Grecu's height, I gave up!"

Victor Rotaru is a remarkable artist whose personal and artistic choices have defined him in a unique way. He remained true to his own artistic vision and refused to submit to the ideological pressures of the age, demonstrating his courage to follow his own path in the art world.

The painting exhibition "Victor Rotaru: Reflections in Colors" can be visited between September 21 and October 21, 2023, in Room no. 1 of the National Museum of History of Moldova, Chisinau, 31 August 1989 street, 121A.