Photoarchive and Digitalization Company, focussed on acquisition of professional photo archives.
United Archives was designed in 2008 planned as a stable essence after 20 years of professional experience in the picture industry since 1988. The aim is to give press photo archives and photographer life estates a stable new home, in which they have the economic basis to be developed digitally and to survive for the future generations. Today United Archives shows the digital outcome of 14 press p
hoto archives and 14 photographer estates with an estimated asset base of about 25 Mio images, all acquired with full rights. United Archives activities are spreaded over 2 wide areas, focussing on the digitalization of owned images, licensing these to publishing clients and activities in the cultural field, for ex. partnering for projects for Europeana, the culture portal of the European Commission and to support exhibitions. A personal approach of the founder is to develop the degree of awareness of photographers' names and their lifeworks in the digital age to keep them unforgotten and to create access to these works through the internet to future generations.
20/11/2024
Es ist jetzt wirklich die richtige Zeit: Nach mehr als 30 Bildarchivübernahmen seit 2012 und deren Digitalisierung machen wir den nächsten Schritt und "kapitalisieren" unsere Expertise:
Vor 50 Jahren waren Abba in "Ein Kessel Buntes" zu Gast. Während ihres DDR-Besuchs performt die schwedische Band unter anderem Waterloo und Honey Honey auf der Bühne des Friedrichstadtpalast.
06/11/2024
Mit ihrem Solodebüt „Alf" (1985) gelang Alison Moyet ein Nr.-1 Album mit Top-Hits wie „All Cried Out", „For You Only", „Love Resurrection" oder „Invisible". Nach der Trennung des Synthie-Pop-Duos Yazoo startete die englische Sängerin ihre Solokarriere. Zwischen 1984 und 1987 war sie die Solokünstlerin mit den meisten Plattenverkäufen in Großbritannien und erhielt den Brit Award als „Beste Sängerin".
05/11/2024
Neue digitale Motive des Archivnachlasses von Tassilo Leher sind online. Alle Fotos (C) United Archives/Tassilo Leher
01/11/2024
Nach Jahrzehnten gingen die Lichter im "Maca-Ronni" auf der Hahnenstraße aus, der Promi-Treffpunkt, Gastro-Hotspot und Szenelokal ist Geschichte. Zur Deponie sollen auch Fotos des Kölner Fotografen ZIK gekommen sein, daher keine Sorge - wir haben sie!
Agony + Ecstasy Galerie auf Ibiza macht grad erste Proofs eines Portfolios von Walter Rudolph. 2025 werden wir dort sein zur Vernissage.
22/10/2024
Theater, italienischer Kunstfilm, deutsche Komödie, Fernsehserie – das Spektrum von Schauspiel-Legende Doris Kunstmann ist breit. In welchen Rollen hat unser heutiges Geburtstagskind Sie am meisten beeindruckt?
Einen Teil unserer Bildarchive gibt es jetzt für Zuhause. Tapeziert die Wände, baut eine private Galerie und wählt aus mehr als 50.000 Werken aus. Such-Empfehlung für Hobbyköche und Küchendesigner: Andres Neapel
Vor 45 Jahren träumte „Schocker“ davon, mit seinem Freund Richy „Die große Flatter“ zu machen. Das toll besetzte Sozialdrama blieb vielen im Gedächtnis. Erkennen Sie, wer hier zu sehen ist, und erinnern sich daran, wer noch mitgespielt hat?
01/10/2024
Von 1992 bis 2011 bot die Seifenoper „Marienhof“ immer neue Geschichten und Probleme. Von der ersten bis zur letzten Folge 4053 dabei war Viktoria Brams als gutmütige Blumenhändlerin Inge Busch. 🌹 Bei welcher Vorabendserie haben Sie gerne eingeschaltet?
30/09/2024
Ella Fitzgerald - Concert in East-Berlin 1967
This poignant black-and-white photograph captures the iconic jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald in a moment of deep introspection during a live performance in East Germany (DDR) in 1967. In this striking image, Fitzgerald is seen gently resting her hand against her cheek, a gesture that conveys vulnerability and emotional depth. Her eyes, half-closed, reflect a connection to the music and a moment of personal reflection.
About Tassilo Leher:
Born in the dark years of World War II, Tassilo Leher became an icon of photographic art in divided Germany. As the son of war correspondent Karl Leher, whose lens captured moments of contemporary history, he was born in 1940 in the heart of Berlin.
He shared not only the studio in the picturesque Prenzlauer Berg with his father, but also the mysterious world of the darkroom. While Karl Leher, an early riser, made use of the morning hours, Tassilo found his creative flow only by midday, often working late into the night.
His camera knew no bounds: from the dazzling stars of East German show business like Phudys, Karat, Hildegard Kneef, Manfred Krug, Bubi Scholz, to international greats such as Dean Reed, Karel Gott, Jiri Korn, and Costa Cordalis – all found themselves in front of his lense.
Lassen Sie sich von uns eine E-Mail senden und seien Sie der erste der Neuigkeiten und Aktionen von United Archives GmbH erfährt. Ihre E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht für andere Zwecke verwendet und Sie können sich jederzeit abmelden.
More than 100 years of cooperation in and cooperation with press and image agencies and the latest knowledge of phototechnology is the basis of our experience and give the directive for the digitization of our archives.
We focus on the digitization of image archives that we have acquired with all rights. We choose out of an estimated 10 million picture templates daily. We are always interested in images and archives, which are historical and culturally from important.We are happy when we are approached to this topic, as well as to offer press-photographic repertoires or image archives.
Our headquarters with all workstations is located in the historical heart of Cologne. Our archives are stored around this city, and can also be searched in our picturemaxx place “United Archives”.
In addition to our own holdings, we also represent partners from Germany and abroad who round off our content.
We have largely entrusted the distribution to the users of our photos, especially publishing houses, to major national and international sales partners.
We are a founding member of www.photoconsortium.net, an international organization dedicated to the cultural heritage of photography. Photoconsortium has emerged from an EU-funded digitization project, www.europeana-photography.eu, which has been successfully completed in 2015 and to which we have contributed more than 40,000 digitized images.
We hold already prestigious collections like the Carl Simon Estate or the IFTN Cinema Collection, two of our largest assets. We acquired the "old" archive of ROBA Music Editors, including the lifework of the photographer Siegfried Pilz in 2013.
Since 2014 we own the independent lifeworks of the travel photographers Hanna Seidel and Walter Rudolph and the amazing archive of Jakob Volk, who shoot the Cologne area with a self constructed camera in the early years of the last century.
In 2015 we acquired the lifework of Heinz Browers and his Browers Press Agency. He was focused on Munichs Schickeria in the 1960ties and 1970ties.
In 2016 we acquired Impress Images, a press agency, which was active for more than 30 years, mostly showing German TV set photography.