Arts in the Archives

12-01-2026

We celebrate, anniversary by anniversary, all the amazing art in our archives: music, film, literature, paintings, and more - if you would like to contribute by flagging up an anniversary coming up in 2026, please let us know via email at info@archivesportaleurope.net

Table of anniversaries:

David Bowie (died 10 Jan 2016)

Agatha Christie (died 12 Jan 1976)

Alexander Korda (died 23 Jan 1956)

Georges Lautner (born 24 Jan 1926)

E. T. A. Hoffmann (born 24 Jan 1776)

Giuseppe Verdi (died 27 Jan 1901)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born 27 Jan 1756)

Release of "Mélinmontant" (Jan 1926)

Clark Gable (born 1 Feb 1901)

Mary Shelley (died 1 Feb 1851)

David Bowie (10th anniversary of his death)

Singer, songwriter, but also an important actor, David Bowie is arguably one of the most influential figure in pop culture of the 20th century, not only in music, but for cinema, theatre, fashion, etc. There is quite a large collection of material about David Bowie in APE (you can access it here), but like for all real stars, his influence continues to produce documents trail well past his death: this is a photograph from the archives of the prestigious F+F School for Art and Media Design Zurich, which had an art installation dedicated to Bowie in 2018.

Agatha Christie (50th anniversary of her death)

Agatha Christie, arguably the queen of the whodunnit genre, wrote 66 detective novels, 14 short stories collections, and 33 theatrical piece, 20 of whom original, the other adapted from her novels. To these days, she is the most translated author ever, her characters and stories resonating with virtually any culture in the world. Here is a pic from one of her play, "And Then There Were None”, put into production at the Die Insel Theatre in Germany in 1977 (please note, the original caption uses the original title from 1939, which quoted a traditional English minstrel from 1869 - not unrepeatable for good reasons).

Alexander Korda (70th anniversary of his death)

Sir Alexander (Alex) Korda was one of the founding fathers of modern cinema.Born Sándor László Kellner in 1893, in Hungary, Korda began his career in the European silent film industry before working in Hollywood and eventually establishing himself as a central force in British filmmaking from the 1930s onward. He founded London Films and later owned British Lion Films, playing a decisive role in building a commercially viable and internationally respected British film industry. Korda produced and directed several landmark films, including "The Private Life of Henry VIII", "Rembrandt", and "The Third Man", which combined high production values with international appeal. His importance lies not only in his artistic achievements but also in his role as a film entrepreneur who helped transform British cinema into a global competitor; in recognition of this contribution, he became the first filmmaker to be knighted, in 1942. You can find much more about him in our archives, at this link; here is the Portuguese poster of his last movie as a director, the first adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "An ideal husband", which enjoyed international success despite being at the centre of a boycott in Hollywood, organised by the radical right-wing group "Sons of Liberty", that boycotted British movies, officially, in protest of the British policies in the Palestine Mandate, considered a hindrance to the establishment of the State of Israel; although Korda believed the boycott was in large part due to the distribution quotas imposed by Britain on American films, in order to promote British cinema...

Georges Lautner (100th birthday!)

French film director Georges Lautner would have been 100 years old today! A very prolific director, with 46 feature films on his belt in a career that spunned from the 1960s until his death in 2013, Lautner was a key figure in post-war French popular cinema, successfully combining commercial success with a distinctive authorial style, particularly the sharp dialogue,co-written with Michel Audiard,which transformed genre cinema into a vehicle for biting social satire. He directed some of the most iconic French crime and comedy films of the era, notably "Les Tontons flingueurs" (1963), which has become a cult classic. By blending violence, irony, and dark humour, he helped European cinema move from strict realism toward a more stylised and ironic form.

E. T. A. Hoffmann (250th birthday!)

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a German Romantic author of fantasy and gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, and artist, creating some of the first examples of both horror literature and crime fiction. His works became more famous through other media, notably the novella "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", which everyone knows as "The Nutcracker" ballet. You can see the trail of archival documents left by E.T.A. Hoffmann in his career here, amongst which this portrait of his by fellow artist and writer, who lived one century later, A.W.M.C. Ver Huell, held at the Gelders Archief

Hoffmann is still an important source of inspirations to artists in the present: we are honoured to host filmmaker Matteo Bernardini's latest animated work, a short animated phantasmagoria inspired by what he considers Hoffmann ’s masterpiece, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. To create this tribute, Bernardini drew inspiration from Hoffmann’s own sketches and doodles, preserved in the historic collections of the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Giuseppe Verdi (125th anniversary of his death)

Arguably one of the most famous composer of all time, Giuseppe Verdi wrote many of those opera pieces that are still an important part of pop music today, such as Aida or La Traviata. His music was also strongly charged with political connotations, becoming a part of the process of Italian unification. APE hosts almost 900 collections on him, from 15 different countries, with documentation as new as from 2020 related to him - you can dive here

The poster for "Un giorno di regno" at the State Opera in Wrocław, by artist Jan Lenica,1960s

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (290th Birthday!)

The first child prodigy, the first cursed artist, and the first rock star, the enduring legacy of Mozart needs no justification. In his short life (he died at 35 years of age), he composed 22 operas, 41 symphonies (not including the unfinished ones), 50 concertos, 70 sonatas for chamber music, plus sacred music, and other pieces for orchestra and solo voices - the first minuet composed when he was only 5. There are more than 5000 collections on Mozart in APE; here you can access the papers for the organisation of the Mozart festival in 1892 (and still a yearly event) , and here is the French poster for the bicentenary of his birth

100th anniversary of the release of "Mélinmontant"

Ménilmontant, directed by French-Russian director Dimitri Kirsanoff (you can see all the archival collections about him here), remains one of the most powerful and distinctive works of silent cinema, and it continues to resonate with audiences a century later, for the way it redefined cinema at the time: it is a landmark of French avant-garde cinema. Despite being a silent film, it uses almost no intertitles, relying instead on editing, camera movement, and close-ups to convey emotion and meaning. Furthermore, women are the protagonists in this film, at a time when women in cinema were relegated to secondary roles. Although it was not widely successful upon release, Ménilmontant has since become a canonical work in film history. You can check it for yourself, as it is now fully available on Youtube:

Clark Gable (125th Birthday!)

Clark Gable defined Hollywood stardom in the 20th century, shaping new ideas of masculinity, celebrity, and the power of cinema as mass culture the was after all the male star in what is still the highest grossing film of all time, "Gone with the wind". Here is the Portuguese poster for "Ambição do Oiro", or "Call of the wild", from 1935

Mary Shelley (175th anniversary of her death)

Mary Shelley, born in London in 1797, is one of the most important figures in modern literary history. She reshaped the relationship between science, imagination, and ethics, particularly thanks to her novel "Frankenstein", which created one of the most iconic, classic, and famous tropes of horror imagery - and it is regarded as one (if not the) foundational text of science fiction - there are more than 3000 collections about Frankenstein in Archives Portal Europe, against 83 collections about Shelley; still, her name was not obscured by her creature, remaining also one of the most beloved, and known, writers of all time. Here you can see the film censorship licence for the very first (of 460) Frankenstein film adaptation, from Edison Studios, in 1910 :

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