The exhibition "In the Light, Through the Light, Towards the Light. Hermann Krone. Photographer (1827 - 1916)" (Im Licht Durchs Licht Zum Licht. Hermann Krone. Photograph (1827 - 1916)) took place on the premises of the Albertinum at the Brühl Terrace in Dresden from June to August 1998. It was organized by the The Dresden State Art Collections/ Cabinet of Prints and Drawings (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / Kupferstich-Kabinett) and the Dresden University of Technology (Technische Universität Dresden). The basis for this exhibition was created by many years of preparatory work that, at among other things, aimed at registering all photographs of Hermann Krone that could be found in public and private collections and archives, and thus reconstruct his life's work in its entire dimension. A database was compiled for the Krone - Collection (Krone-Sammlung), which contains the original data of the Didactic Panels (Lehrtafel), that of the negative collection of the University of Technology, as well as that of all further important collections. The data is linked with digitized reproductions. Altogether, the database contains approx. 5,500 data sets and may be used by anyone on the collection premises.

Prior to the exhibition, an expert committee also came up with suggestions on the question of the conservation of the "Historical Didactic Museum of Photography" (Historisches Lehrmuseum für Photographie), which is housed in the IAPP. The proposal was finally carried out by budding photograph conservators during internships.
Based on the number of visitors in the Albertinum, the exhibition had enormous success with the public. Next to the Sculpture Collection and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Dresden State Art Collections, the following institutions contributed to the exhibition with loans: the Krone - Collection of the Dresden University of Technology, the German Museum (Deutsches Museum) in Munich, the Ludwig Museum / Agfa Photo-Historama in Cologne, the Muzeum Narodowe we Wroclawiu in Wroclaw (Breslau), the City Museum (Stadtmuseum) of Dresden, and the City Museum (Stadtmuseum) of Pirna.

Thus, Hermann Krone's work, scattered throughout different collections, was coherently presented for the first time. A total of 45 panels from the Historical Didactic Museum formed the main emphasis of the exhibition. Another 70 Didactic Panels were shown by the projection of slides. Art reproductions and photographs of models from the Sculpture Collection were also on exhibit.
A major part of the show was dedicated to landscape photography, an important part of Krone's work. Series of "pictorial travel pictures" (Malerische Reisebilder), topographic city views, and photographs of architecture were present. Portraits of citizens, scientists and artists of Dresden, as well as some of Krone with his family were shown. This range of motifs and content described a large part of the scope of various applications of 19th century photography.

In order to create a link to current tendencies in image perception and manipulation, the organizers, curators-in-charge Wolfgang Hesse and Dr. Hans-Ulrich Lehmann, of the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings in Dresden, also integrated modern forms of presentation. As a reference to the rapidly developing modern imaging media, the video installation "HomoGen", by Frank Voigt, was placed in the entrance hall. The group of artists around K. H. Wagner emphasized the irritation that is generated by new imaging media, with issues of authenticity and singularity of the personal portrait, with their digital photographic portrait studio. In addition, visitors could become acquainted with the first version of the multimedia CD-ROM "Photography Herrman Krone", developed by Andreas Heine and Raimund Jentsch.

The actual yield of the whole undertaking was the range of accompanying events and publications. Prior to the exhibition, the internationally attended conference "Colour Defect! Versus the Disappearance of Colour Photographs" (Farbfehler! Gegen das Verschwinden der Farbfotografien) took place. The conference proceedings were published under the same title. In addition, an edition of high-quality reproductions of photographs from the Krone - Collection was published by the collotype workshop in the Printing House (Druckhaus) in Dresden. In August 1998, the premiere of the cinematic documentation took place. "Painting with Light" (Mit Licht malen), by Ernst Hirsch and Manfred Gußmann, is filmed at various locations in Dresden and surrounding, in Leipzig, and in Wroclaw (Breslau), and describes the life and work of Hermann Krone.

The conference "The Photographic Pioneer Hermann Krone. Photography and Equipment. Picture Culture and Photographic Technology in the 19th Century " (Der Photopionier Hermann Krone. Photographie und Apparatur. Bildkultur und Phototechnik im 19. Jahrhundert) positioned the exhibition in the broad frame of the development of industrial image production in the 19th century.
The conference was organized by the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings, the journal "History of Photography" (Fotogeschichte), Marburg, the Dresden University of Technology, and the Subgroup "History" of the German Photographic Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie - DGPh).
Instead of an exhibition catalogue, an illustrated book was published, named "Hermann Krone. Historical Didactic Museum of Photography. Experiment. Art. Mass medium" (Historisches Lehrmuseum für Photographie. Experiment. Kunst. Massenmedium). It included all of the preserved Didactic Panels as well as the frames containing Daguerreotypes.

The second stop of the exhibition was in Wroclaw, formerly named Breslau, where Krone had grown up and completed part of his studies. The scale of the exhibition was reduced in order to fit the local conditions at the "Muzeum Narodowe we Wroclawiu". Here too, the major part of the exhibition was based on the Krone - Collection of the IAPP, including the Historical Didactic Museum. Further loaning institutions were the City Museum of Dresden, the City Museum of Pirna, and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings in Dresden. From March to May 1999, Krone's work could be viewed in the place it had once found its beginning. Although the exhibition in Wroclaw did not draw as large crowds as its predecessor had, based on the comparative statistics it was unusually popular.

The exhibition "Hermann Krone. A Pioneer of Photography" in the Museum East German Gallery (Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie) in Regensburg was next to follow. It was produced in co-operation with the Museum of Regensburg and was open from April to May 2000. A total of 45 panels of the Historical Didactic Museum were shown in the large exhibition hall, and four further panels were exhibited in the Hall of Graphics. The exhibition also showed all of the ten preserved Daguerreotype tableaux from the Krone - Collection. Loans had also come from City Museum of Pirna (stereo cards and landscape views), the Ludwig Museum / Agfa Photo-Historama (portraits and photographs from the 1872 "Koenigs-Album"), as well as the German Museum in Munich. To complement the exhibits, visitors were also able to use the multimedia Krone CD-ROM in a substantially extended form and view the Didactic Panels not shown in original by means of the projection of slides. A simply constructed viewing aid made it possible to experience the stereo images in three dimensions. As in Dresden, the cinematic documentation was shown separately. The exhibition was well accepted. The number of visitors was accordingly smaller than in Dresden, due to the size of the venue and the lack of Krone's biographic relevance to the city.

The work with and within the Krone - Collection carried out since the exhibitions has consisted particularly in co-operations, project participations, and other forms of publication. Since the long-term preservation of the originals could be secured by an air-conditioned environment and conservation staff support, the future presentation of Krone's work in exhibitions will be possible.