News

We report on the latest developments in provenance research and on projects funded by the Foundation, as well as offering details of important new publications, exhibitions and conferences and reporting on restitutions. Feel free to send in interesting news relating to the field of provenance research to presse@kulturgutverluste.de

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Colonial contexts

“Prove­nance & Re­search” 2|2020 published in English

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion has pub­lished “Prove­nance & Re­search” 2|2020 in En­glish: The Is­sue of the pe­ri­od­i­cal is about "Cul­tur­al Goods and Col­lec­tions from Colo­nial Con­texts".
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Nazi-looted cultural property

Joint project to commemorate the fate of Jewish people by the SPK and the Bavarian State Painting Collections

Together with the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the Staatlich Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, SPK) with its National Museums in Berlin is planning to establish a multimedia archive to commemorate victims of Nazi persecution.
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Colonial contexts

German Lost Art Foundation publishes second edition of Working Paper series

The German Lost Art Foundation has published the second dossier in its new series Working Paper Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste. In it, historian Eva Künkler draws on selected examples to provide an overview of the systematic looting that occurred in connection with so-called punitive expeditions carried out in German colonial territories in Africa.
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Nazi-looted cultural property
Colonial contexts
Soviet zone / GDR

Training sessions on project funding: obtaining a funding agreement and avoiding accounting errors

From March 2022 onwards, the German Lost Art Foundation will be offering training sessions on the legal aspects of project funding.
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Colonial contexts

Launch of online portal “Collections from Colonial Contexts”

The German Digital Library (DDB) has launched the online portal “Collections from Colonial Contexts” under the domain ccc.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de . This means that collection material from colonial contexts held by 25 institutions is now available online as part of the German Digital Library. Initially developed as a prototype, the portal is to be expanded in future to create an extensive central publication platform for information on collection items from colonial contexts held by German cultural and academic institutions.
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Colonial contexts

Übersee-Museum investigates the provenance of 18 Benin bronzes

In November, the Übersee-Museum in Bremen began conducting research into 18 items in its collection that originate from the former Kingdom of Benin in present-day Nigeria. Funded by the German Lost Art Foundation, the six-month project entitled “Research into the Provenance of 18 Objects from Benin” seeks to document chains of provenance and reveal possible contexts of injustice, thereby paving the way for potential restitutions to Nigeria. As project coordinator Dr. Jan Christoph Greim explains: “There are clear grounds for suspicion that some of the items are looted objects from the British punitive expedition of 1897.” The project findings are to be made publicly accessible in the central database of the Digital Benin initiative.
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Norbert Zimmermann (1946-2021)
SPK/U. Ruths

The German Lost Art Foundation mourns the death of Norbert Zimmermann (1946-2021)

It was with great sorrow that we received the news of the death of Norbert Zimmermann, long-time Vice President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. In the course of his work for this organization, Norbert Zimmermann was closely involved with the activities pursued by the German Lost Art Foundation’s two predecessor institutions.
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Nazi-looted cultural property

Foundation Board of the German Lost Art Foundation approves amendments to funding guidelines

At its meeting on 2 November 2021, the Foundation Board of the German Lost Art Foundation adopted amendments to the funding guidelines for provenance research (regarding cultural property expropriated as a result of Nazi persecution).
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Prof. Robert Zepf, director of the SUB Hamburg, and Regine Schoch, representative of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, with the restitution agreement.
Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Photo: Ann-Kristin Hohlfeld
Nazi-looted cultural property

Hamburg SUB restitutes Nazi-looted art to Friedrich Ebert Foundation together with ZB Recht

On November 17, 2021, the Staats- und Uni­ver­si­täts­bi­blio­thek Carl von Os­sietz­ky in Hamburg , together with the Zen­tral­bi­blio­thek Recht, restituted more than 100 books, letters and materials on Otto von Bismarck to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V. The books were located in the course of research for a project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation. During the collection’s handover, the history of Bismarck-Bücherei Specht, originally located in Aumühle, was traced. It was sold to the SPD-owned publishing house Auer-Verlag” in 1927 and became part of the holdings of the Staats- und Uni­ver­si­täts­bi­blio­thek as looted art during the National Socialist regime.
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Nazi-looted cultural property
Colonial contexts
Wartime losses
Soviet zone / GDR

Jasmin Hartmann takes over as head of the Koordinationsstelle für Provenienzforschung in NRW

Newly established office to bundle activities in North Rhine-Westphalia in the field of provenance research to begin work on January 1, 2022
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