Pearls of wisdom from the May 6-7, 2011 Provenance Research Seminar

“You can’t restitute if you don’t have good research,” Kaywin Feldman, AAMD

Interesting comment in view of the fact that, traditionally, American museums are loath to restitute regardless of how thorough and meticulous the historical research is on objects being claimed by victims.

“Who knew what when?.... There is no statute of limitations on genocide.” Jim Leach, National Endowment for the Humanities.

A marvelous truism by former Congressman Jim Leach, who was the most outspoken advocate of a public dialogue on Holocaust-era looted assets in Congress during the Clinton years. The principle that genocide trumps statutory limits is an ethical principle that has not permeated national courts either in the Americas or in Europe.

“Provenance research is restitution research,” Lynn Nicholas, author, The Rape of Europa

Here, I beg to differ with Lynne Nicholas. Restitution is a possible outcome of provenance research but it is not the incentive underlying it. Provenance research, above all, is about due diligence, transparency, and intellectual honesty.

“Why do we need footnote.com? Why not open source access to historical documents?”, Uwe Hartmann, Bureau for Provenance Investigation and Research, Berlin

Uwe Hartmann raised a fundamental point about the proprietary and for-profit nature of current research tools in the digital world that are being made available to the general and specialized publics. Indeed, the National Archives in the United States had entered into a contract with a private company that produces digital versions of archival records, www.footnote.com. Unfortunately, the idea of paying to have access to an un-indexed, un-catalogued, un-organized document that could just easily be retrieved from an archive without having to pay off is somewhat injurious, unless, of course, you have no plans on coming to College Park, MD, or Washington, DC, for that matter. The same holds true for the National Archives of the United Kingdom which charge for downloads of archival documents.

The idea of open source is one that is extremely popular in the computer programming world but one which has not entered into the habits of researchers and historians who are, by nature, proprietary about their work for obvious professional reasons guided by publishing and career-enhancing considerations.  Historical archives starved for cash are resorting to commercial tactics to replenish their coffers. By doing so, they penalize their audience and make it more difficult and penurious to conduct historical research.

Nevertheless, in an ideal world, digital historical information should be publicly-available much as the database of art objects at the Jeu de Paume tries to do by unleashing on-line as a public service all that there is to know, as of now, on art thefts in German-occupied France.

An Interactive sneak peek at the schedule for May 6-7, 2011, World War II Provenance Research Seminar in Washington, DC

A New Era of Collaboration and Digitized Resources: 

World War II Provenance Research Seminar

May 6-7, 2011

United States National Archives

700 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest

Washington, D.C. 20408-0002

(Please use the Special Events Entrance, 

Constitution Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets, NW)

Friday, May 6

9:30 – 10:15 REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

MORNING SESSION: INTERNATIONAL PORTAL FOR NAZI-ERA CULTURAL PROPERTY RECORDS

10:15 – 11:15 WELCOME

James Hastings, United States National Archives, Washington, DC
Kaywin Feldman, Association of Art Museum Directors

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Jim Leach, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC
Lynn H. Nicholas, Independent Scholar, Washington, DC

11:15 – 12:15 PRESENTATIONS

Rebecca Warlow, United States National Archives
Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, Federal Archives, Berlin
Anne Webber, Commission for Looted Art in Europe, London
Kyrylo Vyslobokov, Archival Information Systems, Kyiv

12:15 – 1:00 DISCUSSION MODERATED BY

Nancy H. Yeide, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Victoria Reed, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

1:00 – 2:00 LUNCH ON YOUR OWN

AFTERNOON SESSION: INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES AND COOPERATIVE PROJECTS FOR NAZI-ERA CULTURAL PROPERTY RECORDS

2:15 – 3:00 PRESENTATIONS

Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Cambridge
Marc Masurovsky, Independent Historian, Washington, DC
Wolfgang Schöddert, Ferdinand Möller Archive, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin

3:00 – 3:15 BREAK

3:15 – 4:00 PRESENTATIONS

Andrea Baresel-Brand, Coordination Office for Lost Cultural Assets, Magdeburg
Uwe Hartmann, Bureau for Provenance Investigation and Research, Berlin
Christian Fuhrmeister, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Central Institute for Art History), Munich

4:00 – 4:30 DISCUSSION MODERATED BY

Jane Milosch, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Christian Fuhrmeister, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte

6:00 – 8:00 RECEPTION: FREER GALLERY OF ART, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

Please use the Jefferson Drive entrance, located at 12th Street SW

WELCOME

Richard Kurin, Office of the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, Smithsonian Institution
Julian Raby, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Saturday, May 7

10:00 – 10:30 CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

MORNING SESSION: ARCHIVAL RESOURCES FOR PROVENANCE RESEARCH, PART I

10:30 – 10:45 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Louisa Wood Ruby, The Frick Art Reference Library, New York

10:45 – 11:30 PRESENTATIONS

Jona Mooren, Nederlandse Museumvereniging (Netherlands Museums Association), Amsterdam, and Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (Netherlands Institute for Art History), The Hague
Marisa Bourgoin, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Michelle Elligott, Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

11:30 – 12:15 DISCUSSION MODERATED BY

Laurie Stein, Smithsonian Institution
Sarah Kianovsky, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge

12:15 – 1:30 LUNCH ON YOUR OWN

AFTERNOON SESSION: ARCHIVAL RESOURCES FOR PROVENANCE RESEARCH, PART II

1:45 – 2:30 PRESENTATIONS

Christian Huemer, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Megan Lewis, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Anneliese Schallmeiner, Commission for Provenance Research, Vienna

2:30 – 2:45 BREAK

2:45 – 3:30 NEW PROJECTS AND RESOURCES

Helen Schretlen, Nederlandse Museumvereniging
Dorota Chudzicka and David Hogge, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Nancy H. Yeide, Kress Collection Provenance Research Project, National Gallery of Art

3:30 – 4:15 DISCUSSION MODERATED BY

Nancy H. Yeide, National Gallery of Art
Laurie Stein, Smithsonian Institution

4:15 – 4:30 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Lynn H. Nicholas, Independent Scholar

The seminar is sponsored by the United States National Archives, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the American Association of Museums and the Smithsonian Institution, with additional support provided by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation and James P. Hayes.