New Executive Chair takes office

The German Lost Art Foundation welcomes its new Executive Chair: Professor Dr. Meike Hopp takes up her position at the Foundation in Magdeburg on 1 December 2025. The art historian was appointed by the Foundation Board on 1 April this year for an initial term of five years. She has also accepted a Professorship in Digital Practices in the Cultural and Humanities Studies at the University of Cologne.

State Minister for Culture and the Media Wolfram Weimer stated: “I am very pleased that Professor Dr. Meike Hopp, a renowned scholar with an outstanding professional network, is taking up the position of Executive Chair of the German Lost Art Foundation. For many years, Professor Dr. Meike Hopp has shown great commitment to provenance research in Germany and has previously provided advisory support to the Foundation in her role as Chair of the Board of Trustees. With her outstanding expertise in digital provenance research, she will provide important impetus across the Foundation’s fields of activity.”

Meike Hopp (43) studied art history, theatre studies and classical archaeology at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich, where she completed a widely acclaimed doctoral dissertation on art dealing under National Socialism. She later led several research projects at the Central Institute for Art History and held several teaching appointments, including at LMU Munich. In 2019 she accepted an appointment to a junior professorship in Digital Provenance Research at the Technical University of Berlin. Meike Hopp served as Chair of the Provenance Research Association (Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V.) for several years, and from 2022 onwards she was Chair of the Board of Trustees of the German Lost Art Foundation.

State Minister Weimer also expressly thanked Hopp’s predecessor, Professor Dr. Gilbert Lupfer, who headed the Foundation as full-time Executive Chair from May 2020 to May 2025: “Under his leadership, the Foundation underwent significant professional and structural development and was strengthened as a recognised point of contact for museums, researchers and international partners. I thank Gilbert Lupfer for his great commitment to the German Lost Art Foundation and to provenance research as a whole.”

Meike Hopp: “I would like to thank the Foundation Board for the trust it has placed in me and I greatly look forward to continuing the work of the German Lost Art Foundation together with a highly committed team who have already welcomed me very warmly. Over recent years, the Foundation has developed into an important source of impetus for advancing scholarly expertise in the field of provenance research through its funding programmes, thereby responding in a particularly significant way to society’s responsibility in dealing with unlawfully appropriated cultural property. I would like to build on this and further open up the Foundation to fresh research questions, digital methods and a form of provenance research that gives greater consideration both to the perspectives of those affected and to international contexts. I look forward to this role and to further enhancing the visibility and impact of the Foundation – also in conjunction with my professorship in Cologne, which will give rise to valuable synergies between academic research and the Foundation’s practical work.”

The full text of the press release and a print-ready photograph of Meike Hopp are available in the press section.

To the press release issued by the University of Cologne