On the source value of digitised gallery publications (1871–1949)

Galleries have always dealt in contemporary art. They exhibit recently created works and are committed to developing a market for them. Following the French model, galleries also spread to Germany at the end of the 19th century. Economic prosperity and the desire for social renewal provided a fertile ground for this development. Within a few years, forward-thinking art dealers were able to interest well-to-do bourgeois circles in modern artistic positions, initiate highly acclaimed collections and establish the gallery business model in the art trade.

Creating a primary market for unknown works of art involves a high level of entrepreneurial risk. Running a business with this focus successfully over many years was and is therefore no mean feat. In the 1920s, the consequences of the First World War, hyperinflation and the global economic crisis further restricted German trade. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 1930s, modern contemporary art had gained value and recognition in Germany, establishing itself as a sign of a progressive attitude in society and, against the will of reactionary forces, also finding a place in museums. Gallery publications, often issued only as leaflets and in small editions, accompanied this development and transparently advertised the availability of the latest works.

With the end of the Weimar Republic, modern art, its trade and acquisition became the enemy of National Socialist cultural policy, which culminated in the ‘Degenerate Art’ campaign in 1937. For art market research, the number of approximately 20,000 paintings, sculptures and works on paper that were confiscated from museums as ‘degenerate’ is a quantitative indication of the mediation work carried out by the trade to public institutions. The number of works sold into private ownership up to that point is likely to be significantly higher. Provenance research has already traced some of these works back to Jewish collectors who were persecuted by the Nazis after 1933 and forced to sell their works.

To date, reconstructing the early paths of modern works in the art trade has been a challenge for scholars. Provenance research aimed at implementing the Washington Principles of 1998 lacks urgently needed documentary records from galleries that offered and sold contemporary art before and after 1933. The few known partial estates are mostly insufficiently catalogued, and the catalogues from the secondary auction market made available through German Sales since 2011 only list modern works sporadically, as these were primarily distributed by galleries and introduced to the market by them.

The widest possible digital availability of gallery publications therefore significantly expands the source base for provenance research in the field of classical modern art. It becomes possible to verify when and in what context individual works were exhibited and under what titles – often no longer valid today – they were offered at the time. It becomes possible to research the availability of works in galleries before or after collectors have decided to acquire or resell them. Works advertised after 1933 in particular may refer to contexts of confiscation due to Nazi persecution.