The history of private collecting in the Soviet Occupation Zone and in the German Democratic Republic is, apart from a few individual case studies, largely unwritten, as the scholars Thomas Rudert and Gilbert Lupfer wrote in 2016.
Almost ten years later, little has changed. But with the increasing attention to the SBZ/GDR as a “context of injustice” in which cultural assets were brought into circulation, and with the increasing number of research projects dealing with state intervention in these movements, it is time to attempt a more detailed analysis of private collections in these contexts.
To what extent was it possible to preserve or build up private collections in the SBZ and the GDR? How were these collections brought together and what became of them? What connections existed between private and public/museum collections in these contexts? What resources are available today for researching these private collections and how can this help us in provenance research with regard to the SBZ, the GDR and earlier contexts of injustice? What does the history of these collections tell us about the specific context of the SBZ/GDR from 1945 to 1990?
By private collections, we mean any collections of cultural assets, including works of fine art (painting, sculpture and works on paper), but also objects of applied art and design that were built up from private funds.
For additional information, visit: www.khi.uni-bonn.de/fpk/de/nachrichten/cfp-privatsammlungen-in-der-sbz-und-ddr
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