German Sales Primary Market. Gallery Publications in German-speaking Regions (1871–1949)

‘German Sales’ currently provides mainly digitised auction catalogues; sales and stock catalogues could only be included to a limited extent. The cooperation project between the Heidelberg University Library and the Berlinischen Galerie, funded by the DFG for two years starting in 2023, ‘German Sales Primary Market. Gallery Publications in German-speaking Regions (1871–1949)’ is now expanding its focus and making the early primary market for modern art accessible to researchers. The aim is to identify as many publications as possible that were published by modern art galleries in German-speaking countries between 1871 and 1949. In the first phase of the project, around 3,000 volumes are to be digitised and made available in full text on the Heidelberg University Library's servers in a sustainable and open access format. The project will begin with the holdings of five cooperation partners: the Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, the Library of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek in Cologne, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.

The integration of digitised gallery publications into ‘German Sales’ aims to substantially improve the current information infrastructure for the development of modern art.

At the Berlinische Galerie, the corporate histories of the approximately 570 companies that published the catalogues are being researched and incorporated into the information system currently under development, ‘German Sales Institutions – Auction Houses, Galleries, Antique Bookshops’. In-depth research is being carried out on approximately 130 Berlin galleries. The semantic, ontology-based indexing not only enables the visualisation of trade networks. In line with Linked Open Data, the content can also be reused as RDF triples for other projects.

Contact

Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
Dr. Maria Effinger: effinger (at) ub.uni-heidelberg.de
Tel.: +49 (0) 6221 543561

Berlinische Galerie
Dr. Wolfgang Schöddert: schoeddert (at) berlinischegalerie.de
Tel.: +49 (0) 30-78902-826