Teaching provenance research at the Free University of Berlin

Free University, Berlin
Source: Wikipedia

Last April, the Free University of Berlin announced that it had initiated the first academic program in Germany on cultural plunder. Classes would be taught at the undergraduate level towards completion of a Bachelors of Art. However, no details were forthcoming about the actual nature of the program, the number of classes offered, the length of the program, the inter-disciplinary nature of the curriculum, and the scope of the content being offered to students.

As it turns out, the program itself, new as it is, is far from being that ambitious. In fact, it is a provenance research program. The novelty of teaching provenance research in an undergraduate setting is duly noted, but the fanfare surrounding the creation of the program might have been a bit over the top.

Nevertheless, let’s take a closer look at what is actually being taught and by whom. The program addresses a number of broad themes: the historical background, the impact of National Socialist cultural policy; reparations and compensation (hopefully, restitution figures here as well); case studies of provenance research conducted for auction houses, museums, private collections and claimants; Art and the Law; Sources and Documentation. Students are expected to produce research papers and present their findings at the end of the course.

There is one lecture per week. A different specialist presents a specific topic at each lecture. The program is broken down into two segments; coursework in the first semester and independent archival research in the second semester.

Although the Third Reich orchestrated institutional acts of cultural plunder in every country that it occupied, the historical locus of the program remains Nazi Germany with some considerations given to collections stolen in other parts of Europe and to the methods of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR).

As to the types of looted cultural objects being covered in the case studies, emphasis, as usual, is on paintings and works on paper, but other categories are also being addressed like furniture, accessories, and Judaica.

Subsequent to the program, the Free University of Berlin has organized three month internships for the students with institutions in Berlin, Leipzig and London. The lecture “Cultural and museum policies and the art market during the Nazi era”  was taught by Meike Hoffmann together with Andreas Hüneke. Together with Uwe Hartmann, she also taught the lecture “Galleries, private collections, dealers and collectors (Aryanization, confiscation and duress sales)” while visiting the exhibition “Gute Geschäfte. Kunsthandel in Berlin 1933-45 (A Good Business: The Art Trade in Berlin 1933-45)” which was on display at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin, 10 April-31 July 2011.

The following is a summary of the courses offered and a brief description:

Historical Background

"Looting during the Napoleonic wars and gaps in the historical record prior to the 20th century" Uwe Hartmann (AfP)

Presentation topics:

• The effect of secularization (1803) on the art trade and the development of private and public collections.
• Napoleon’s donations

"Cultural and museum policies and the art market during the Nazi era" Andreas Hüneke (Degenerate Art Research Centre, FU Berlin)

Presentation topics:

• The law to re-establish the civil service (7.04.1933) and its impact on museum directors.
• Auction houses and galleries during the Third Reich
• Consequences of Nazi Cultural Policy

"'Degenerate Art' – seizure, confiscation and exploitation of modern art" Andreas Hüneke and Meike Hoffmann (Degenerate Art Research Centre, FU Berlin)

Presentation topics:

• Confiscation of “degenerate art” at the museum of fine arts and applied arts in Halle in 1937.
• The exploitation of “degenerate art” through the art dealer Bernhard A. Böhmer.

"Galleries, private collections, dealers and collectors (Aryanization, confiscation and duress sales)" Uwe Hartmann (AfP)

Presentation topics:

• The art dealer Karl Haberstock (1878-1956) – Hitler's art dealer
• The Aryanization of the Heinemann Gallery

"Looted art and the art trade in occupied territory" Dr. Stephanie Tasch (Christie's)

Presentation topics:

• “Sonderauftrag Linz” (Special commission Linz) and the confiscation of the Adolphe Schloss collection
• Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and the confiscation of the Salomon Flavian collection.

Reparations and Compensation

"Public collections in Germany dealing with the burdened inheritance from1945 to the present (CCP – TVK – BADV)" Dr. Angelika Enderlein (BADV)

Presentation topic:

• The work of the American Allies in the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP)

"Provenance research as a political task and moral responsibility (“Washington Principles”, “Joint declaration”, current debates)" Peter Müller (BKM - Federal Government for Culture and Media)

Presentation topics:

• The dispute about the Sachs poster collection in the German Historical Museum
• The dispute about “Sumpflegende” by Paul Klee 

"Sumpflegende", Paul Klee
Source: Bloomberg

Case Studies

"Provenance research in the art trade" Isabel von Klitzing (Sotheby’s)

Presentation topics:

• The collection Henry and Emma Budge, Hamburg
• Lovis Corinth „Römische Campagna“, 1914, from the collection Curt Glaser, Berlin

"Provenance research at the Berlin State Museums" Dr. Jörn Grabowski, Dr. Petra Winter (ZA SMB - Central Archive of the Berlin State Museums)

Presentation topics:

"Der Watzmann", Caspar David Friedrich
Source: Amazon.com

• Caspar David Friedrich „Der Watzmann“ (1824/25). Acquired by the National Gallery in 1937 from Martin Brunn (Berlin)
• Johann Erdmann Hummel „Bildnis Frau Luise Mila“ (around 1815). Acquired by the National Gallery from a private collection in 1937

"Provenance research for collectors or claimants" Nina Senger (Jacques Goudstikker collection)

Jacques Goudstikker
Source: Jüdisches Museum, Berlin

Presentation topics:

• Hermann Göring and the confiscation of the Goudstikker collection
• Just and Fair Solutions: Restitution of confiscated Jewish collections in Holland using the example of the Goudstikker collection

Art & Law

"Results of provenance research as a basis for court decisions or out-of-court settlements" Carola Thielecke (HV SPK)

Sources & Documentation

"Archival material, databases and further electronic resources in use for provenance research" Dr. Andrea Baresel-Brand (Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg) 


According to the 13 April 2011 press release accouncing the program, for more information, please contact:

Dr. Meike Hoffman
Freie Universität Berlin, Kunsthistoisches Institut, Forschungsstelle Entartete Kunst
Telefon: 030 / 838-54523
E-Mail: meikeh@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Training the current and next generations of provenance art research specialists

by Marc Masurovsky

The most important aspect of any inquiry into looted works and objects of art lies in the quality of the research required to demonstrate the facts underlying the theft or misappropriation of the object and especially if it was returned to its rightful owner before entering into the hands of a current possessor. The work is laborious and necessitates, more often than not, creative use of documentation and resources found in a multiplicity of archives and collections in order to cobble together the often complex story of an object together before ascertaining what exactly happened to it.  An inevitable consequence of lack of expertise in these complex historical and forensic matters has been shoddy research in the context of art ownership disputes that have gone to trial over the past decade, especially as pertains to the resolution of disputes stemming from duress sales (or forced sales) in the period between 1933 and 1939.

Sadly, there is a near-absence of formal training programs in colleges, universities, art institutes, museums and other facilities which have a direct stake in the debate over looted and plundered art objects. Curiously, although many academic centers are associated with a museum which have undertaken provenance research into their collections, that activity has not produced any academic interest to teach the subject matter or to provide training to the student body.

Once the exclusive province of art historians, the dysfunctions inherent to past and present debates over provenance research stem largely from a lack of desire to do anything concretely measurable in the area of training, which is to say:

• initiate programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels in degree-granting academic institutions;
• expand the availability of internships both quantitatively and qualitatively to afford new talent a chance to do serious hands-on research and investigative work into museum collections. Incidentally, there has been notable progress made in museums where provenance research efforts have been under way. Although opportunities for provenance work through internship have increased, the corollary access to training has not necessarily followed suit, except perhaps in the most established museums. A background in art history is simply not enough for undertaking solid provenance research.
• just as importantly, provide specialized training to museum and art market professionals aimed at sharpening their forensic toolkit when researching complex ownership histories.

Issues of provenance and questionable ownership of art objects have taken on greater significance in the past five years to the point where they require serious attention from policymakers, grant-making institutions, not just in North America but in Europe as well.

It is fittingly ironic, however, that the first undergraduate program to focus on issues of cultural plunder did not see the light of day in the United States, but rather, in Germany, at the Free University of Berlin.

Pleas for training have come from all quarters, including Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Canada, and, to a lesser extent, the United States. In Canada, following a gathering of specialists in Ottawa in November 2001, the assembled participants recommended, among other things, to the Canadian authorities that there was a “need for significant support of staff training” which could only be financed by public monies. Since then, the same recommendations have been made in a report dated February 2008.

In 2004, a survey of American museums conducted by Edward Luby and Meagan Miller revealed the need for training amongst museum professionals to whom they sent questions. Especially affected were the mid-sized museums with very little resources to commit to staff training on provenance-related matters. Some proposed using advanced educational technology to provide training workshops when physical attendance is fiscally impossible to justify. Moreover, they lamented the fact that the Museum associations organized too few events focused specifically on provenance matters.

A recent Swiss governmental working group formed by the Federal Department of Home Affairs and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs completed a survey of 531 domestic cultural institutions and recommended, among other things, “training courses” in provenance research.

Recent pronouncements at the Holocaust Assets Conference in Prague in June 2009 brought the issue of training for improved provenance research back to the fore, albeit temporarily. Those recommendations were again echoed at the May 6-7, 2011, Washington, DC, World War II Provenance Research Seminar. As usual, proof is in the pudding. Who will be the first one to undertake such a program? Or, how much longer do students, researchers, investigators, specialists, museum professionals, cultural workers, need to wait before such programs come into being?