akg-images

About akg-images

akg-images is a historic picture library with a London office in Wimbledon and its head office in Berlin, licensing fine art, historical and archive photography to media professionals worldwide. Describing itself as the largest specialist agency for fine art, history and vintage photography, the company offers an online collection of more than 10 million images — spanning archaeology and world history through performing arts, fine art and photography — to publishers, broadcasters, museums and advertisers. Its UK website is at akg-images.co.uk.

Founded in 1945 and still independent, akg-images belongs to a distinctive corner of the media industry: the specialist picture library, where expert researchers help clients find historically accurate, legally certain imagery for editorial and commercial projects. From offices in Berlin, London and Paris, its staff serve productions around the world, working with renowned cultural institutions, artists and private collections. This profile examines the agency's collection, its London operation and its place in the picture trade.

An Independent Archive Since 1945

akg-images traces its origins to 1945, the year of its founding, and has remained independent ever since — a notable achievement in a picture industry that has seen wave after wave of consolidation, as global giants absorbed smaller archives. The company's longevity, now stretching past eighty years, reflects the enduring value of its core asset: a deep, expertly curated collection of visual history built up over decades.

Independence has allowed akg-images to maintain its specialist character. Where large stock agencies chase volume across every conceivable subject, akg has stayed focused on culture and history — fine art, historical photography, archaeology, the performing arts — cultivating relationships with museums, archives and private collectors that give its collection a depth generalist libraries cannot easily replicate.

Head Office Berlin, Offices in Three Cities

The company's head office is in Berlin, the city where it was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War. From Berlin it coordinates a network of offices in London and Paris, giving it a presence in three of Europe's great cultural capitals. The three-office structure supports productions worldwide, with researchers in each location serving clients in their own markets and time zones.

The Paris office extends the agency's reach into the Francophone art and publishing world, while Berlin remains the administrative and curatorial heart of the operation. Together the three offices embody akg's identity as a European cultural institution as much as a commercial picture library — an agency rooted in the continent's museums, archives and artistic heritage.

The London Office in Wimbledon

akg-images' British operation, akg-images Ltd, is based in Wimbledon, south-west London, at Unit 1, 42 Beulah Road, London SW19 3SB. The company announced its move to Wimbledon in 2019, relocating its London team to the new premises. The office is led by managing director Jonnie Léger, and can be reached at enquiries@akg-images.co.uk.

The Wimbledon base puts the agency within easy reach of central London's publishers, broadcasters and production companies, while giving it the space a picture library needs. From here the London team serves UK clients across magazines, books, corporate communications, design, advertising, events and new media — and represents the company's collection at industry gatherings such as the imageMarketplace London event at the St Bride Foundation on Fleet Street.

A Ten-Million-Image Collection

The heart of akg-images is its collection: more than 10 million images available online, illustrating the history of world culture. The holdings span fine art and architecture, history and politics, and culture in its broadest sense — cinema, performing arts, fashion, personalities and sport — alongside science and technology, civilisations (archaeology, religion, human activity and maps) and natural history.

The collection's strength lies in its iconographic range: from ancient archaeology to modern photography, it aims to illustrate the whole of world cultural history. For picture editors working on books, documentaries or exhibitions, that breadth — combined with the agency's emphasis on historical accuracy — makes it a first port of call when a project needs imagery that is both visually powerful and properly sourced.

Working with Cultural Institutions

akg-images works directly with world-renowned cultural institutes, artists and private collections, licensing imagery on their behalf to media professionals. These partnerships are the source of much of the collection's uniqueness: material from museum archives, artists' estates and private holdings that is not available through generalist stock libraries.

The relationships run both ways. Cultural institutions gain a specialist route to market for their visual assets, handled by an agency that understands the curatorial sensitivities involved; clients gain access to rare and defining images with clear provenance. In a market where the legal certainty of licensed imagery matters enormously — particularly for publishers and broadcasters — the agency's emphasis on rights-cleared, accurately captioned material is a key selling point.

Editorial and Commercial Licensing

akg-images licenses its collection for both editorial and commercial projects. Editorial clients — newspapers, magazines, book publishers, broadcasters and documentary makers — use the archive to illustrate stories, features and programmes, drawing on its strengths in history, politics and the arts. Commercial clients in advertising, design and corporate communications license imagery for campaigns and brand work.

The agency has served leading companies worldwide for decades, building long-term relationships with picture desks and production teams. Its licensing operation handles the full workflow from search and selection to rights clearance and delivery, with high-resolution files supplied for print, broadcast and digital use.

Expert Picture Research

A defining feature of akg-images' service is its picture research offering. The company's researchers — described as creative and knowledgeable — work with clients to find exactly the right image for a project, drawing on their familiarity with the collection's depths. The agency offers complimentary picture research, inviting media professionals to get in touch to arrange research support for their projects.

This research-led model distinguishes the specialist library from the self-service stock agency. For complex briefs — a documentary needing historically accurate images of a particular period, a book requiring rare fine-art reproductions — the expertise of a researcher who knows the archive intimately can save days of searching and prevent costly errors of attribution or anachronism.

Standing in the Picture-Library Trade

Within the picture industry, akg-images holds a distinctive position as the largest specialist agency for fine art, history and vintage photography — a claim the company itself makes, and one that reflects its focus in a market dominated by generalist giants. Its competitors in the heritage space include long-established names such as the Mary Evans Picture Library in London, but akg's combination of scale, European roots and museum partnerships sets it apart.

The company's eight decades of operation have seen the picture trade transformed — from physical archives of prints and transparencies to fully digital, searchable online collections. akg-images has made that transition while retaining the curatorial values of the traditional picture library: historical accuracy, high quality and full legal certainty, in the words of its own mission statement.

Location and Current Status

akg-images continues to operate as an independent picture library from its head office in Berlin and its offices in London — at Unit 1, 42 Beulah Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 3SB — and Paris. Its online collection of more than 10 million images serves media professionals worldwide, supported by expert picture research offered free of charge. Its UK website is at akg-images.co.uk.

For over eighty years, the agency has helped its clients discover powerful, authentic visuals — from fine-art masterpieces to defining historical photographs. In an age of infinite, unverified imagery, akg-images' proposition remains what it has always been: the right image, accurately sourced, legally certain, and found by people who know the archive.