National gallery’s collection becomes digital

TIRANA, July 17 – Albania’s National Gallery collection, whose artworks date back to the late 19th century marking the beginnings of Albania’s non-religious paintings, is being digitized. Suzana Varvarica, an art researcher, says the digital collection is being enriched with new data every day, assisting researchers with correct data on artwork dimensions and techniques.
The researcher tells reporters the digitalization process is being carried out in compliance with the law on artworks, archives and copyright.
“The full digitalization of works is not the same compared to five years ago, there is a quality step in this direction and you can find artworks documented in pictures, with physical and technical data and important descriptions of the history of the artwork. ”
The Albanian National Arts Gallery was originally founded in 1954 and moved to its current location on Tirana’s central boulevard in 1974. The national collection of visual arts ranges from a collection of religious icons ranging from to the 13th to the 19th century, works from the National Renaissance and Independence period (1883-1944), the biggest painting and sculpture collection in the country from the socialist realism period (1944-1990), as well as a foreign artists’ pavilion and rotating collections of contemporary national and international art.
Some of the most important annual exhibitions organized are “Marubi,” the International Artistic Photography Contest and “Onufri,” the International Visual Arts Contest. The Gallery is committed to promoting artists, associations and various artistic groups from the country as well as giving visitors access to significant and interesting traveling collections from abroad.
The gallery is surrounded by a lovely park, and as a special bonus at the rear of the building there are a few still-defiant Communist-era partisan statues clenching their fists at the sky, as well as imposing statues of Lenin and Stalin.