More money for provenance research: The German Lost Art Foundation expands its research funding

In 2021, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion will re­ceive a to­tal of 1.5 mil­lion Eu­ros more than last year. The ad­di­tion­al funds will be pro­vid­ed by the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia, Prof. Moni­ka Grüt­ters. This will en­able the foun­da­tion to again in­crease its fund­ing for re­search in­to un­law­ful­ly seized cul­tur­al prop­er­ty in 2021, with fund­ing for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Nazi-loot­ed prop­er­ty con­tin­u­ing to ac­count for by far the largest share, now a good 5 mil­lion Eu­ros.

Prof. Gilbert Lupfer, Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion, wel­comed the in­crease: "This de­ci­sion en­ables in­sti­tu­tions and pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als in Ger­many to re­search un­law­ful­ly seized cul­tur­al prop­er­ty even more in­ten­sive­ly than be­fore. And it al­so shows that prove­nance re­search, and thus com­ing to terms with in­jus­tices that have oc­curred, con­tin­ues to en­joy high pri­or­i­ty in cul­tur­al pol­i­cy."

At its most re­cent meet­ing in De­cem­ber, the Foun­da­tion's Foun­da­tion Board de­cid­ed to ad­just the guide­lines for fund­ing in the ar­eas of cul­tur­al prop­er­ty seized as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion and cul­tur­al and col­lectible prop­er­ty from colo­nial con­texts. Among oth­er things, the max­i­mum fund­ing amount for short-term projects was in­creased from 15,000 Eu­ros to 25,000 Eu­ros. In the area of Nazi-loot­ed art, fund­ing for so-called First Checks is now al­so pos­si­ble for pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als. The pur­pose of such a First Check is to de­ter­mine whether there is a sus­pi­cion of Nazi-confi­cat­ed art in a col­lec­tion. In this way, the need for fur­ther, long-term prove­nance re­search can be de­ter­mined or ruled out. First Check projects can now al­so be fund­ed for prove­nance re­search on cul­tur­al and col­lec­tion items from colo­nial con­texts. In ad­di­tion, cer­tain pri­vate­ly fund­ed in­sti­tu­tions in this area will al­so be able to sub­mit ap­pli­ca­tions for fund­ing in the fu­ture. The Foun­da­tion Board al­so de­cid­ed to in­crease fund­ing for his­tor­i­cal con­text re­search on cul­tur­al prop­er­ty con­fis­ca­tions in the So­vi­et Oc­cu­pa­tion Zone and the GDR from up to 300,000 Eu­ros to up to 500,000 Eu­ros for 2021.

At the meet­ing, Dr Gün­ter Winands, Chair of the Foun­da­tion Board, thanked the pre­vi­ous Chair of the Board of Trustees, Dr Ute Haug, for her great ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to the Foun­da­tion. The mem­ber­ship of the Foun­da­tion's Board of Trustees changed reg­u­lar­ly af­ter five years in Novem­ber 2020.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg, which was found­ed on Jan­uary 1, 2015 by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, the states and lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions, is the cen­tral point of con­tact in Ger­many for all ques­tions con­cern­ing un­law­ful­ly seized cul­tur­al prop­er­ty. The Foun­da­tion re­ceives in­sti­tu­tion­al fund­ing from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia, from which it al­so re­ceives fund­ing for its projects. The Foun­da­tion's main fo­cus is on cul­tur­al prop­er­ty ex­pro­pri­at­ed as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly from Jew­ish own­ers. In ad­di­tion, the Foun­da­tion's fields of ac­tiv­i­ty in­clude cul­tur­al prop­er­ty and col­lec­tions from colo­nial con­texts and cul­tur­al prop­er­ty dis­placed as a re­sult of war, as well as cul­tur­al prop­er­ty con­fis­cat­ed in the So­vi­et Oc­cu­pa­tion Zone and the GDR. Ap­pli­ca­tions for longer-term projects can be sub­mit­ted by Jan­uary 1 and June 1 of each year.