The research project «From the Stage to the Studio» aims at making the inventory, to study and to disseminate the photographic portrait in Portugal, in particular the theatrical portrait. A working team was established to that purpose with consultants and researchers from the Line of Studies on Contemporary Art at the Art History Institute of the Faculty (School) of Social and Human Sciences of the Lisbon New University, researchers and technicians of the National Theatre Museum (MNT), and researchers and technicians of the DGPC Division of Photography.

The project began at the end of 2009 and, since the photographic collections of the MNT are very large, there is still no (final) date for the conclusion of the inventory, though we expect the scientific research to start mid-2013. The work plan we established has allowed already carrying out the partial treatment, the inventory, the digitalization and the study of more than 5,000 photographs per year. By the end of 2012, there were already more than 15,000 photographs inventoried, digitalized and studied. Given that a considerable set of photographs of especial importance is composed by glass negatives, it was necessary to treat them and to make a digital positive in order to simplify its study.

On the other hand, it has been carried out a very important cataloguing (document listing) of periodicals of the photographs’ period, both in the theatrical area as well as general ones. Some of the publications that the group has already examined are ABC, Almanaque dos Palcos, Boemias Teatrais, Cinéfilo, De Teatro, Revista de Teatro e Música, Domingo Ilustrado, Espectáculo, Ilustração Portuguesa, Imagem, Jornal dos Teatros, Kino, Magazine Bertrand, Movimento, Notícias Ilustrado, Objectiva, Ocidente, Século Ilustrado e Voga. The possibility of comparing the theatrical photographs and the graphic and textual information of contemporary periodicals has proved to be crucial for improving our knowledge about the activities of theatres as well as that of photographers.

Taking into account the need to give priority to some tasks, we decided to start the study of photographic portraits of actors from the beginning of existing photographs (mid-19th century) until the end of the Nineteen Thirties. Due to the inventory and the study of the photographs that exist in the MNT and the Photographic Division, complemented by surveys we carried out in other institutions (ANTT, AFCML, BAFCG) as well as the above mentioned documents listing, we expect to be able to demonstrate that photographic portrait has known a profound transformation from the end of the 19th century through the end of the first third of the 20th century, and also that such transformation was accentuated in the early decades of the 20th century.

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Envisaged public results of this project will be: release of an on-line image database; major exhibition; international conference on photographic portrait