About us? SCALA archives in 10 points
The Scala Picture Library - A Superb Fine Art Collection
SCALA ARCHIVES is the largest and most prestigious fine art image archive worldwide. Transparencies and high resolution digital files of works of art from all over the world, covering every age and every field of visual arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, archaeology, the ancient & the modern world, decorative arts, photography, design, fashion etc.) are available for licensing to all media.
Italian art makes up the core of the collection, however the Library contains thousands of first-rate works from the rest of Europe, the United States, Russia, the Middle and Far East, and Africa.
We are an important intermediary between museums & publishing houses and we offer unique services to both our customers & the collections we represent. Our aim has always been to support and advance the study, knowledge, love and diffusion of art and its history.Which Museums Do We Represent?
Scala is either the outright owner or official agent for many of the most important art, fashion, photography & historical collections worldwide (see Main Museums).
To mention but a few among the diverse locations, collections and museums represented: The Italian and German State Museums (Berlin, Dresden, Munich, etc.), the Vatican Museums, Egyptian Museum, Turin, The Luce/Cinecittà Archive, The Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, The Louvre, The Musée d’Orsay, ADAGP collection (the French artists’ rights management society), The Pushkin Museum, Moscow, The Hermitage and The Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg, The National Gallery and V&A, London, The UK National Trust, The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, The Museu Gulbenkian, Lisbon, The Munch Museum, Oslo, The Prado and The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, and the Kyoto International Culture Foundation.
Furthermore several US museums have chosen to be represented by Scala Archives. Among them: the MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, NY (worldwide exclusivity), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (essentially European exclusivity), The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, The Pierpont Morgan Library, The Neue Galerie, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, and numerous others.Scala Archives – History & Cinema
Since 2010 we represent the Cinecittà-Luce Archive. This collection of over 3 million images forms an exceptional documentary of life in Italy in the 1900’s. Political & social reform from 1919 to 1965, the height & decline of Fascism, the birth of the Republic, Italy reborn after the Second World War, the film stars, via Veneto and La Dolce Vita. Combined with the DuFoto and AGF archives it offers a great chronicle of Italy’s recent past.
How Many Images Do We Have & Who Can Offer You Assistance?
The Scala Picture Library includes over 300,000 images representing works of art, architecture, landscapes, monuments, fashion & photography, history, anthropology and travel. Its founders could never have guessed that their early dream would develop into an archive now considered as the world's most important art image collection. The quality as well as comprehensiveness of its holdings makes it unique. A multilingual and experienced staff is available in offices in Florence, London & Paris, as well as in our agents’ offices in New York, Tokyo, Sao Paolo and Seoul.
Why do Museums Entrust the Management of their Collections to Us?
The main function of a museum isn’t to provide high resolution images, hence it often can find itself unable to create or maintain the structure capable of meeting the outside demand for reproductions and permissions, especially if received on short notice. A company like Scala, specialized in “Museum Image Licensing”, can help provide high quality images along with a fast service & an in-depth knowledge of the laws governing licensing of artworks, including regulations on the cropping of images and copyright law. Museums, institutions, art collections & photographic archives can thus be assured an increased revenue from the sale of reproduction rights at no additional cost (see Services to Museums). In fact while additional promotion will raise image sales all of the associated organizational costs, including debt recovery, will be assumed by Scala.
What Advantages can Scala Offer to Those in Search of Images?
When Was Scala Born & Why Are We Called Scala Archives?
SCALA ISTITUTO FOTOGRAFICO EDITORIALE S.A.S. was founded in Florence in 1953 by two young Art History students with a passion for Photography: John Clark & Mario Ronchetti, with support & encouragement from their famous professor Roberto Longhi. At the time there was still a tendency in the field to attribute greater importance to form and volumes of an artwork, colour being considered almost an accessory element. Longhi’s idea was, instead, to professionally photograph the works of art & architecture, and to offer these images, for the first time in faithful colour, to the publishing world in order to assist in the further study of the art works. The company thus found in commercial publishing the necessary means to cover the expenses for their pioneering photographic campaigns, which were photographed, unusually for that time, exclusively on colour film & producing large format transparencies (13x18 and 20x25 cm.), perfect for professional printing. In order to control possible alterations of colours in the original slides, colour & grey scale standard labels (Kodak Colour Control Patches) were used. These strips, placed underneath the work to be photographed, provide a standardised chromatic reference in order to estimate variation of the colours of the film during years. With the aid of this guide it is possible to assess the reddening of a film, correct it with film masks (today with the help of digital retouching) that balance the cyan and magenta layers of the slide. It is from this colour scale (scala colore in Italian), that Scala takes its name. Today we can see that the adoption of this system was a far-sighted choice, in fact at the time few would have bet on the fidelity and durability of colour photos, particularly with regard to the reproduction of art works. Today Scala Lab) still works with experts in the field of restoration and digital film retouching; lastly Scala’s photographers are the best in the documentary art photography field.
The website and multilingual art history searches
The archive’s images have been entirely digitised and are available on-line. All images are protected against unauthorised use by traceable electronic watermarks. Customers can obtain free access to the images by registering and logging into the site. The site from the start was in the main bilingual (Italian & English) and over time now almost all the text has been translated into English including titles, locations, English version’s of artists names etc. A French page has then been added, with all instructions and descriptive texts in French, but the majority of the captions is in English. In order to get round this difficulty, and to shorten the time necessary for a full translation into Italian/English also of a number of external archives represented, whose image information is only available in the original language (French or German), Scala has decided to use an innovative multilingual search engine that directly translates keywords searched for into all languages available in the database.
Once your account is enabled it is then possible to immediately download your search results as high resolution files from the site. Alternatively, orders can be submitted on-line where a member of Scala’s staff will send the image to you via email, download link or FTP.
Customers may also use the free thematic search service provided by the Library's expert staff (firenze@scalarchives.com). Thanks to Scala's highly sophisticated Internal Search Database enabled with over 7000 keywords, our team can easily perform in depth and specific searches based on a person, an event, or a theme (for example a “Madonna & Child” , the “French Revolution” or more simply “Cat”).
Access to the site is free, but registering on the site (also free of charge), certainly offers further advantages (see Registration Advantages).
Who is Scala Group?
Scala Archives forms part of Scala Group SpA, a multimedia company active internationally in the field of Image Sales, Creation and Production of Editorial Art Publications, Training & Development courses, and able to provide its contents in a variety of formats and platforms. The Archive is the oldest entity and lies at the heart of the general Scala Group operation by supplying its images to the numerous projects carried out by the other two departments comprising the group: Scalabooks and E-ducation.it.
2009
2008
2007
2006
2003-2005
2002
1999
1997-1998
1995-1997
1993
1986-89
1968
1958-67
1957
1953