German Lost Art Foundation allocates 1.15 million euros in funding for provenance research projects – Advisory committee is constituted

In or­der to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the de­cen­tralised search for Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed cul­tur­al as­sets, the re­cent­ly es­tab­lished Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion has de­cid­ed to grant a to­tal of 1.15 mil­lion eu­ros to fi­nance re­search prove­nance projects at sev­en­teen in­sti­tu­tions.

Sev­er­al in­sti­tu­tions will be re­ceiv­ing fund­ing for the first time, in­clud­ing the Wil­helm Hack Mu­se­um in Lud­wigshafen, the Lan­desmu­se­um Mainz, the Mu­se­um Abteiberg in Mönchenglad­bach, the Städtis­che Ga­lerie Karl­sruhe and the Zen­trum für Kul­tur­wis­senschaftliche Forschung Lübeck. The fund­ing de­ci­sion came with the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Foun­da­tion’s new­ly es­tab­lished ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee.

The chair­wom­an of the board of trustees at the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia Moni­ka Grüt­ters ex­plained that “the for­ma­tion of the ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee un­der­scores the dy­nam­ics of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion. Search­ing for Nazi-loot­ed art­works is of high­est pri­or­i­ty for the Foun­da­tion’s fi­nan­cial back­ers, name­ly the fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments and lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions. I am pleased to see that the de­mand for fund­ing re­mains strong. This makes the ex­pert as­sess­ments of the re­search pro­pos­als, pro­vid­ed by the ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee un­der Dr. Her­mann Si­mon, di­rec­tor of the Cen­trum Ju­daicum, all the more im­por­tant. With its ded­i­ca­tion and care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, the com­mit­tee can sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribute to shed­ding light on our dif­fi­cult his­to­ry.”

Oth­er in­sti­tu­tions can now look for­ward to re­ceiv­ing con­tin­ued fund­ing for their cur­rent or new projects, in­clud­ing the Klas­sik Stiftung Weimar, the uni­ver­si­ty li­braries of Pots­dam and Ro­s­tock, the Eth­no­log­i­cal In­sti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Göt­tin­gen, the In­sti­tute of Ger­man Jew­ish His­to­ry in Ham­burg, the Staats­ga­lerie Stuttgart, the State Mu­se­um of Art and Cul­tur­al His­to­ry in Old­en­burg, the Mu­nich Stadt­mu­se­um, the Kun­sthalle Mannheim, the Städtis­che Museen Freiburg, the Schloss­mu­se­um Jev­er and the Heimat­mu­se­um in Müll­rose.

The cor­re­spond­ing rec­om­men­da­tions were is­sued by the ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion at its con­stituent ses­sion on 21 May 2015.

The ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee is com­prised of nine in­de­pen­dent ex­perts from the fields of sci­ence and re­search, as well as mem­bers of mu­se­ums, li­braries and archives. The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion with head­quar­ters in Magde­burg was found­ed by the Ger­man fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments and lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions at the be­gin­ning of 2015.