About me

With great interest and pleasure I follow the provenance research on the current art market. Through my previous activities and my research, I have built up an extensive network in the art market and provenance research.

Since 2012 I have been investigating the provenances of paintings, sculptures and hand drawings from public institutions and art dealers for potential Nazi plunder. I have already carried out provenance research in a large number of archives, estates, libraries and databases in Germany and abroad. In addition to the provenance research on Nazi looted art, I have done research on war losses, the reconstruction of the ownership structure of public institutions and collections and actively supported the return of important artworks. In addition, I investigated in various cases the role of Berlin institutions in the German Democratic Republic in reference to the confiscation of cultural property. On behalf of the Otto-Dix-Foundation, I managed Otto Dix’s digital catalog raisonné and helped a large number of external provenance researchers with their investigations into the artist’s works. Because I am enthusiastic about the historical and legal characteristics of artworks, I have focused my studies in art history and law on the field of provenance research, art forgery, GDR cultural policy and especially on the return of Nazi looted art. With the published thesis “Art forgery and provenance research on the current art market” I presented the verification of the history from the artist’s studio to the present owner as a method to prove the originality of an artwork. I am currently deepening this research approach in my doctoral thesis “Forged Contemporary Art and the Role of the Art Market”. The focus here is on the methodology of provenance research for the detection of suspicious factors by tracing research in archives, estates and the historical track of a work.

 

It is of central importance to present extraordinary collections, works of art and archives to the public in their full extent with their history and to recondition them scientifically. This is why I committed myself to the discipline of provenance research.