2008 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Prof. Dr. Bénédicte Savoy, Technische Universität Berlin, during her
presentation at the “Kunst-Transfers” (Art Transfers) conference
58 The project has drawn a corresponding amount of public
attention. This was evident when the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden held a conference on 2nd October
2008 on the subject of “Kunst-Transfers. Thesen und Visionen
zur Restitution von Kunstwerken” (Art Transfers. Theses
and Visions concerning the Restitution of Works of Art) in
the Hans-Nadler-Saal of the Residenzschloss. The conference,
which was part of the accompanying programme
during the 47th Congress of German Historians, was occasioned
by two other events – apart from the launching
of the “Daphne” project. The first of these was the tenth
anniversary of the “Washington Conference”, at which
delegates from more than four dozen states and non-governmental
organisations drew up recommendations for
searching for works of art that had been confiscated from
Jewish owners during the “Third Reich”. If such works of art
were identified in public museums, efforts should be made
to arrive at “fair and just solutions” for all those involved.
The second event was the 50th anniversary of the return
of a large proportion of the works of art that had been
taken to the Soviet Union by the Red Army after the end of
the Second World War. This return in 1958 signified Dresden’s
rebirth as a world-ranking city of art.
The overall theme of the conference was the – often
forcible – transfer of works of art as a result of the political
upheavals in the middle of the 20th century. The organisers
explicitly emphasised that the stealing of art by the
Nazis could not be equated with the taking of art as war
booty, and that the injustice inflicted on Jewish art collectors
could not be relativised. Rather, the fact should be
taken into account that the various forms of the looting
Colloquium “Bildmedien – Medienbilder”
(Image Media – Media Images) held
by the Gerhard Richter Archiv and the
Institute of Art and Music Studies at
Technische Universität Dresden
and displacement of art overlap and intermingle, so that
it can certainly be useful to take the same approaches in
carrying out the relevant investigations. Nevertheless,
critical questions were raised, particularly by Jewish organisations,
as to whether both issues could be dealt with
in a single conference.
Thus, provenance research is currently a key aspect of
the work of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
Thanks to the support of the Saxon State Ministry for
Science and Arts and the Saxon State Ministry for Finance,
they are now well on the way towards developing into a
“centre of excellence” employing more staff in the spheres
of provenance research, archive work and the development
and maintenance of a database than almost any other
museum.
sCiENTiFiC CONgREssEs
Carl Vogel von Vogelstein, Portrait of Carl Gustav Carus,
1828, Kupferstich-Kabinett
Apart from publications, the favoured means of presenting
and exchanging research findings are conferences, colloquiums
and congresses. In 2008 the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden hosted a number of such events.
Most of them were organised in association with other
research institutions, reflecting the close interconnections
between the Dresden museums and the scientific community
at large. Without the financial support of numerous
foundations, firms and private individuals, these events
would not have been possible.
A colloquium organised jointly by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden and the Institute of Art and Music