Lucy Wasensteiner - Provenance Research and “Degenerate Art”

Lucy Wasensteiner - Provenance Research and “Degenerate Art”

The National Socialist campaign against so-called “degenerate art” is often discussed in the context of Nazi art lootings and restitutions after 1945. This campaign was however fundamentally distinct from the regime’s thefts of private property – a calculated attempt to purge unwanted culture from the German state’s own collections. This seminar will explore how Nazi cultural policy developed during the early years of the Hitler regime, and the impact this had on the movement of artworks, culminating in the museum confiscations of summer 1937 and the Munich exhibition Degenerate Art. It will overview the work already done to reconstruct these events, and the resources available to find out more. It will also discuss how these resources can be of broader use to researchers seeking to reconstruct object histories in museums and private collections today.

Dr Lucy Wasensteiner is lecturer in Art History at the University of Bonn. She works in the transdisciplinary Research Centre for Provenance Research, Art and Cultural Heritage Law, supported by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation. She is a qualified UK solicitor and holds a PhD in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Her provenance-based research into the 1938 London exhibition Twentieth Century German Art formed the basis of the London 1938 exhibition project staged in London and Berlin during 2018.

External guests joining instructions:

Seminar Room 3 is located in the V&A's Sackler Centre for Arts Education.

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Gilbert Provenance and Spoliation Research Seminar:

This talk is part of the Gilbert Provenance and Spoliation Research Seminar which aims to provide a regular forum for researchers from numerous disciplinary backgrounds working on provenance and spoliation issues at different museums, universities, libraries, auction houses and both governmental and non-governmental organisations across the UK.

The seminar will provide a space for the presentation of cutting-edge research and discussion of methods, resources, current trends and the increasing challenges of this dynamic and changing field.

Contact

Dr Jacques Schuhmacher, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Provenance and Spoliation Curator
Email: j.schuhmacher@vam.ac.uk | Phone: +44 20 7942 2514