News

"Kun­st und Prof­it. Museen und der franzö­sis­che Kun­st­markt im Zweit­en Weltkrieg" ("Art and prof­it. Mu­se­ums and the French art mar­ket in the Sec­ond World War") is the ti­tle of a Ger­man-French an­thol­o­gy now pub­lished by de Gruyter. The ed­i­tors of the an­thol­o­gy are art his­to­ri­ans Elis­a­beth Furtwän­gler and Mat­tes Lam­mert, while the fore­word is by Béné­dicte Savoy and Gilbert Lupfer.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion has pub­lished a new is­sue of the pe­ri­od­i­cal Prove­nienz & Forschung: ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Foun­da­tion’s au­tumn con­fer­ence this year, the lat­est is­sue of the se­ries ex­plores the top­ic of "Pe­riph­eries".

The Lieber­mann Vil­la on Lake Wannsee has opened the ex­hi­bi­tion When art­works speak. Prove­nance re­search on the col­lec­tion of the Lieber­mann Vil­la. The col­lec­tion has been as­sem­bled since the 1990s and to­day com­pris­es more than 200 ob­jects, most of them hav­ing be­longed to Max Lieber­mann.

The spe­cial ex­hi­bi­tion Sehr er­freuliche Ver­mehrun­gen. Zur Suche nach NS-Raubgut in den Son­der­samm­lun­gen der Staats- und Uni­ver­sitäts­bib­lio­thek Ham­burg (“Very grat­i­fy­ing ad­di­tions. On the search for cul­tur­al prop­er­ty ex­pro­pri­at­ed as a re­sult of Na­tion­al So­cial­ist per­se­cu­tion in the spe­cial col­lec­tions at Ham­burg State and Uni­ver­si­ty Li­brary.”) end­ed last Thurs­day with a resti­tu­tion and a “dou­ble han­dover”. The li­brary pre­sent­ed more than 250 let­ters by the well-known Ham­burg writ­ers Detlev von Lilien­cron, Gus­tav Falke and Richard Dehmel to their right­ful own­ers.

The Mu­se­um of Fine Arts Bern has opened the ex­hi­bi­tion "Tak­ing stock. Gurlitt in re­view", which can be seen un­til 15 Jan­uary 2023.

The Mu­se­um of City His­to­ry Leipzig presents the re­sults of its prove­nance re­search on Nazi-loot­ed art in the pub­li­ca­tion Vergessene Rück(an)sicht­en (“For­got­ten ret­ro­spec­tives”). In the project fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion from 2019 to 2022, the mu­se­um con­duct­ed re­search in­to ac­qui­si­tions made be­tween 1933 and 1945, ex­am­in­ing a to­tal of 323 works of art for pos­si­ble un­law­ful ac­qui­si­tion. From De­cem­ber 2022, a new project prove­nance re­search will fo­cus on oth­er se­lect­ed hold­ings from this pe­ri­od.

This Novem­ber, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is once again hold­ing its an­nu­al au­tumn con­fer­ence: the dig­i­tal con­fer­ence en­ti­tled Die Pe­riph­erie im Zen­trum. Vergessenes, Ver­drängtes und Ver­nach­läs­sigtes in der Prove­nien­z­forschung (“The pe­riph­ery at the cen­tre. What gets for­got­ten, re­pressed and ne­glect­ed in prove­nance re­search”) on 14 and 15 Novem­ber will fo­cus on prove­nance re­search be­yond the ma­jor cities and in­sti­tu­tions – in the coun­try­side, in bor­der re­gions and in small­er mu­se­ums.

Her­mann Parzinger, Pres­i­dent of the Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Foun­da­tion (SPK), and Ab­ba Isa Ti­jani, Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Mu­se­ums and Mon­u­ments (NCMM), last week signed a con­tract on the trans­fer of own­er­ship of the Benin ob­jects from the col­lec­tion of the Eth­no­log­i­cal Mu­se­um of the Na­tion­al Mu­se­ums in Berlin – Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage to Nige­ria.

The Stiftung Deutsches Op­tis­ches Mu­se­um in Je­na has pub­lished an an­thol­o­gy based on the on­line work­shop held on 23 Septem­ber 2021 en­ti­tled His­torische Tech­nis­che In­stru­mente. Zirku­la­tion, Ansamm­lun­gen und Doku­mente des Entzugs zwis­chen 1933 und 1945 (“His­tor­i­cal tech­ni­cal in­stru­ments. Cir­cu­la­tion, col­lec­tions and doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to con­fis­ca­tion be­tween 1933 and 1945”). The as­so­ci­at­ed prove­nance re­search project IN­SIGHT D.O.M. – Prove­nien­zrecherchen zu Käufen, Schenkun­gen und Über­nah­men am Deutschen Op­tis­chen Mu­se­um zwis­chen 1933 und 1945 (“Prove­nance re­search on pur­chas­es, do­na­tions and ac­qui­si­tions at the Ger­man Op­ti­cal Mu­se­um be­tween 1933 and 1945”) is fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.

On Mon­day, 8 Au­gust 2022, Mr. Ig­or Poronyk, Di­rec­tor of the Odessa Mu­se­um of West­ern and East­ern Art, vis­it­ed the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg.