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Photobooks

STM-GCBC Photobook Collection

The STM-GCBC Photobook Collection, currently made up of over 3,400 items (download the full list in PDF) is a highly eclectic, international contemporary collection with a special focus on self-published work, photobooks with short print runs or almost unique, and photography by women. Japanese and Latin American photobooks also have a large presence. It is one of the biggest photobook collections in Spain and Europe, and has specimens that are almost impossible to find today.

The collection can be consulted in the museum library. See opening times.

In 2025 purchased the Gabriela Cendoya collection (see news item from 2025.09.18, in spanish), made up of 3,143 items, and with the addition of those the museum has acquired in recent years, its holdings numbered 3,425 items at the time of the purchase.

With the aim of promoting the world of photobooks, in addition to making the collection available to the public, San Telmo organises presentations and workshops and includes pieces from the collection in museum exhibitions in order to complement and add the vision of the photographers/artists to the themes addressed in each exhibition.

Access the photobooks catalogued up to now

STM Catalogued photobooks

For a more exhaustive search of the photobooks in the museum:

Enter the Public Reading Network of Euskadi.
Enter the term “fotolibros” in the “Search” field.
Choose the option “Donostia > San Telmo Museoa” in the “in” field.

Photobooks can be consulted in the hall, but you must request them from the hall staff and show an identity document.

VIDEOSWatch the lectures on the photobook on the Youtube channel of STM

What is a photobook?

It is a book written with photographs, whose order is established by its creator in a coherent manner and following a specific visual rhythm. The artist presents the narration of an idea, a story or a message that is told following the narrative model of literature or cinema; he or she combines different images and plays with them.

These images are edited and arranged in a specific way in order to give meaning to the narrative and show a unified work of art that may be interpreted in many different ways. The photography is key, but so are the design, the text (if any), the graphics, the typography and the printing. These are all essential aspects of photobooks.

According to Gabriela Cendoya, the photobook is “a work of art in itself, both content and container. Reading it has the power to create an immediate, lasting intimacy with the artist's work, an experience both intellectual and tactile.” “These familiar, intimate objects, perfect vessels for meaning and emotion, and yet so easy to share, compel us to stop and pause, to reflect. They are tools of knowledge, seeds of the future. They are the carriers of our memory, something so necessary in times of Artificial Intelligence.”