German Lost Art Foundation approves approx. €2.15 million for 22 provenance research projects

In the first ap­pli­ca­tion round of 2017 (dead­line: April 1) the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive board ap­proved 22 ap­pli­ca­tions from mu­se­ums, li­braries, aca­dem­ic in­sti­tu­tions and archives. In do­ing so, it has fol­lowed the cor­re­spond­ing rec­om­men­da­tions of the Foun­da­tion’s fund­ing com­mit­tee and has pro­vid­ed fund­ing of around €2.15 mil­lion so far in 2017 to sup­port lo­cal­ly based search­es for cul­tur­al as­sets seized as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion.

“I am de­light­ed that the Deutsches The­ater­mu­se­um in Mu­nich and the Ger­man Oceano­graph­ic Mu­se­um in Stral­sund have been added to the range of or­ga­ni­za­tions fund­ed by the Foun­da­tion, and that oth­er in­sti­tu­tions apart from large art mu­se­ums are al­so com­mit­ted to search­ing for Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty. This should set an ex­am­ple in oth­er ar­eas, such as uni­ver­si­ty col­lec­tions, tech­ni­cal mu­se­ums and civic li­braries,” said Gilbert Lupfer, aca­dem­ic di­rec­tor of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.

An overview of the ap­proved projects can be found in the an­nex.

In its meet­ing on the first ap­pli­ca­tion round of 2017, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion’s fund­ing com­mit­tee al­so elect­ed Stephanie Tasch, de­part­ment head at the Kul­turs­tiftung der Län­der (Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion of the Ger­man Fed­er­al States), as its deputy chair. The elec­tion was nec­es­sary be­cause the pre­vi­ous deputy chair, Gilbert Lupfer, had stepped down from the com­mit­tee and had been ap­point­ed as aca­dem­ic di­rec­tor of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.

Since the Fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments be­gan sup­port­ing prove­nance re­search projects in 2008, the in­sti­tu­tions fund­ed to date have re­ceived around €22.15 mil­lion. A to­tal of 256 projects (173 long-term and 83 short-term) have been im­ple­ment­ed at these in­sti­tu­tions.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is the cen­tral con­tact part­ner, na­tion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, for all mat­ters per­tain­ing to the un­law­ful seizure of cul­tur­al as­sets in Ger­many in the 20th cen­tu­ry. It sup­ports prove­nance re­search with re­search grants and reg­is­ters lost and found re­ports for cul­tur­al as­sets in its pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble Lost Art Database. Ap­pli­ca­tions for longer-term projects may be sub­mit­ted by April 1 and Oc­to­ber 1 each year in ac­cor­dance with the Foun­da­tion’s fund­ing guide­line.