Scientific director:

Prof. Dr. Uwe Fleckner

Projects:

In the summer semester of 2008, a series of lectures on the art trade during the Nazi era was held in conjunction with the Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg, and the Hamburger Kunsthalle. The lectures and accompanying essays on this topic were published in the collected edition Werke und Werte: Kunsthandel, Sammlungen und Museen im Nationalsozialismus, edited by Ute Haug and Maike Steinkamp. The lectures and the publication were generously funded by the Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg, and Stiftung Hermann Reemtsma, Hamburg.

From February 2013 to April 2016, the research team of Gesa Jeuthe and Anja Tiedemann worked on the project The Art Trade under National Socialism. A comprehensive survey analysis with an accompanying documentation of the activities of the galleries Alex Vömel, Düsseldorf, and Karl Buchholz, Berlin, was undertaken. Within this scope, cooperation agreements were established with provenance researchers of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections), Munich, the city of Cologne and the Hamburger Kunsthalle as well as the Koordinierungsstelle (Lost Art Coordinating Centre) in Magdeburg. The project received financial support from the Arbeitsstelle für Provenienzrecherche/-forschung (Post for Provenance Research and Investigation) at the Institut für Museumsforschung (Institute for Museum Research) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

A cooperation was established in July 2019 between the Department of Provenance Research at the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Liebelt Chair in Provenance Research at the institute of art history of Universität Hamburg. The project Legat Cornelius Gurlitt – Konvolut »entartete« Kunst conducts research on the provenance of about 400 works from the Gurlitt Trove that were supposedly seized from museum collections as »degenerate«. The Kunstmuseum Bern finances a research associate at the Research Centre for »Entartete Kunst« for a period of twelve months. The project ist jointly managed by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Gesa Jeuthe (Hamburg) and Dr. Nikola Doll (Bern).

Provenance research:

Provenance research is concerned with the historic course of ownership of artistic and cultural assets and thus lays the ground for »fair and just solutions« on Nazi-confiscated objects within the framework of the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art from 1998. The Research Centre for »Entartete Kunst« and the Liebelt Chair in Historical and Contemporary Provenance Research regularly offer study courses and thus promote young researchers in the field.

Publications by the Research Centre for »Entartete Kunst«:

The work of the research centre is accompanied by a series of publications, largely funded by the International Music and Art Foundation (IMAF), Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The publications document a selection of completed theses, as well as research projects of the centre and its members, partly in cooperation with external specialists. The following volumes have been published or are forthcoming:

Uwe Fleckner (ed.): Angriff auf die Avantgarde. Kunst und Kunstpolitik im Nationalsozialismus, Berlin 2007 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 1)

Maike Steinkamp: Das unerwünschte Erbe. Die Rezeption »entarteter« Kunst in Kunstkritik, Ausstellungen und Museen der SBZ und frühen DDR, Berlin 2008 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 2)

Uwe Fleckner (ed.): Das verfemte Meisterwerk. Schicksalswege moderner Kunst im »Dritten Reich«, Berlin 2008 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 3)

Maike Steinkamp / Ute Haug (eds.): Werke und Werte. Kunsthandel, Sammlungen und Museen im Nationalsozialismus, Berlin 2010 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 4)

Meike Hoffmann (ed.): Ein Händler »entarteter« Kunst. Bernhard A. Böhmer und sein Nachlass, Berlin 2010 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 5)

Uwe Fleckner / Max Hollein (ed.): Museum im Widerspruch. Das Städel und der Nationalsozialismus, Berlin 2011 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 6)

Gesa Jeuthe: Kunstwerte im Wandel. Die Preisentwicklung der deutschen Moderne im nationalen und internationalen Kunstmarkt 1925 bis 1955, Berlin 2011 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 7)

Anja Tiedemann: Die »entartete« Moderne und ihr amerikanischer Markt. Karl Buchholz und Curt Valentin als Händler verfemter Kunst, Berlin 2013 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 8)

Uwe Fleckner / Maike Steinkamp (eds.): Gauklerfest unterm Galgen. Expressionismus zwischen »nordischer« Moderne und »entarteter« Kunst, Berlin 2015 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 9)

Anja Tiedemann (ed.): Die Kammer schreibt schon wieder! Das Reglement für den Handel mit moderner Kunst im Nationalsozialismus, Berlin 2016 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 10)

Felix Billeter (ed.): Kunsthändler, Sammler, Stifter. Günther Franke als Vermittler moderner Kunst in München 1923-1976, Berlin 2017 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 11)

Uwe Fleckner / Thomas W. Gaehtgens / Christian Huemer (ed.): Markt und Macht. Der Kunsthandel im »Dritten Reich«, Berlin 2017 (Schriften der Forschungsstelle »Entartete Kunst«, vol. 12)

The research centre arose out of a special collection of the slide library of the Kunstgeschichtliches Seminar (Art History Seminar) at Hamburg University. In 1991, it was expanded into an independent research centre with the aid of funds from the Leibniz Prize awarded to Martin Warnke and located at the Warburg Haus. The Image Index of Political Iconography comprises about 200,000 index cards with reproductions of works of art, short texts, and other material, to which over one hundred keywords have been assigned. The index covers photographic reproductions, copies, original newspaper cuttings, and postcards, which are organized with the goal of documenting pictorial references to political terms, figures, and events. By systematically comparing different objects via a common keyword, strategies and traditions become apparent that are inherent to the individual pictures and pictorial symbols.

As the collection has grown, different areas of focus have emerged, such as reproductions of legal manuscripts from the Middle Ages, France in the 17th century, and depictions of Napoleon and the Napoleonic era. The archive also includes around 1,000 original picture postcards with political subject matter, materials from the First World War, and a collection of Notgeld (emergency money) printed during the period of hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s with artistic motifs. Moreover, the archive offers access to the full microfiche catalogue of the Witt Library (with approx. 1.3 million images) and a microfiche collection on historical emblems. Preparations are currently underway to digitize the complete Image Index of Political Iconography. The collection is complemented by a library of about 9,000 volumes, including essays and special print editions that are also categorized according to the same keyword system as the collection of images. In this way, pictures and text, image cards and academic studies can be brought into a direct dialogue.

Uwe Fleckner, Martin Warnke, Henrik Ziegler (Hg.):
Handbuch der politischen Ikonographie
In 2 Bänden. Bd.1: Abdankung bis Huldigung. Bd. 2: Imperator bis Zwerg
2., durchgesehene Auflage 2011, Verlag C.H.Beck.

ISBN 978-3-406-57765-9

The ‘Hamburg edition’ of the complete works of Ernst Cassirer gathers all texts and writings by the author that were published in his lifetime in 25 volumes, with the aim of creating a definitive edition of his works, as intended by the author. The practical implementation of the project was realized in association with the Felix-Meiner-Verlag with Universität Hamburg, the Aby Warburg Foundation, the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius, and the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG), Darmstadt.

Ernst Cassirer’s correspondence has been made freely available online thanks to comprehensive digitization by the Hamburg State and University Library and can be searched by person via the link below.