Board of the German Lost Art Foundation appoints new Executive Chair

At its meeting on 1 April 2025, the Board of the German Lost Art Foundation appointed Professor Dr. Meike Hopp as the new Executive Chair of the German Lost Art Foundation. The contract negotiations now under way will include arrangements with the University of Cologne, where Dr. Hopp has been offered a professorship. She will initially be appointed Executive Chair for a five-year term, with the possibility of renewal. She will take up the position as soon as possible.

The Chair of the Foundation Board, Dr. Andreas Görgen, stated: “In Professor Dr. Meike Hopp, the Board has appointed a nationally and internationally recognised expert in provenance research who with her academic focus on the digitalisation of provenance research brings all the qualifications needed to advance provenance research in Germany.”

About Professor Dr. Meike Hopp:

Since 2019, Professor Dr. Meike Hopp has headed the Department of Digital Provenance Research at the Institute of Art History and Historical Urban Studies at Technische Universität Berlin. She studied art history, theatre studies and classical archaeology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, completing her doctorate there in 2012 with a widely referenced dissertation on the art trade during the Nazi era. From 2009 she conducted research and taught at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, where she led several projects on provenance and art market research – also in cooperation with the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München. She maintains strong international links in her work – she regularly participates in international conferences and is actively committed to the development of digital methods in provenance research. In 2018 she was awarded a fellowship by the TOPOI Cluster of Excellence at TU Berlin, where she has held a junior professorship since 2019. She has chaired the Research Association for Provenance Research since 2018 and has chaired the Board of Trustees of the German Lost Art Foundation since 2022.

About the Foundation:

The German Lost Art Foundation is the national and international point of contact and central authority in Germany for matters concerning the implementation of the Washington Principles. Based in Magdeburg, it was established in 2015 by the German federal government, federal states and local authorities. In addition to its main task of addressing the looting of cultural property during the Nazi era, its remit includes cultural objects relocated as a result of the war, cultural losses in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR, and also collections from colonial contexts. The Foundation receives funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and provides financial support for provenance research projects carried out by public and private institutions that hold cultural assets.