commissioned by the Berlin State Archive

Starting January 2020, Facts & Files had been investigating the provenance of the holdings of the Berlin State Archive’s library. This academic reference library contains about 150,000 records.

Provenance Research

The aim of the project on objects at four East Frisian museums was to reconstruct the provenance of the objects, which have so far mainly been classified as “seafarers’ souvenirs” from China, and to research problematic contexts of appropriation.

Since 2002, Facts & Files has been conducting research on the art collection of the Berlin factory owner Richard Semmel, who collected Old Dutch masters as well as works by French artists, mostly impressionists paintings.

Facts & Files was commissioned by the Robert Havemann Association in 2021 with a concept for a feasibility study for the “Forum for Opposition and Resistance”.

Facts & Files was commissioned in 2021 by the Berlin Commissioner for the Study of the SED Dictatorship to conduct a study on archives from the SBZ or GDR in Berlin.

Herbert M. Gutmann (1879-1942) collected paintings, porcelain, tapestries, and antiques. Mr. Gutmann was a collector of Dutch landscape as well as French and German Rococo paintings. Mr. Gutmann also collected Asian porcelain, Persian sculpture and porcelain.

From February 2020 to July 2022 Facts & Files had been commissioned by Ralf von Jacobs to conduct provenance research on the art collection of August, Serena and Erich Lederer.

The provenance research project on the collection of David and Lola Leder, Chemnitz/Berlin, began in June 2021 and ended in August 2022. The project aimed to reconstruct David and Lola Leder’s art collection, research the provenance and whereabouts of artworks from the collection, and identify artworks.

Provenance Research

The research project aimed to reconstruct the art collection of the Wiesbaden pediatrician Georg Koch and his wife Lotte, née Seeligmann. The project started in January 2021. The works of art, among them works by Alexej Jawlensky, Christian Rohlfs and Emil Nolde, were packed into the lift vans, and “disappeared” in the port of Hamburg in 1942.

Research at German Archives

Facts & Files inventories records for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Washington D.C. within the framework of the “USHMM International Acquisitions Program”.

From August 2020 to February 2022, the provenance of objects from the collection of Julius Riemer, which is no part of the Municipal Collections of Lutherstadt Wittenberg was researched. The objects belonged to the Berlin zoologist and mammalogist Oscar R. Neumann before.

Since August 2002, Facts & Files has been working organizing and registering works of art and other artefacts for the permanent exhibition and of the collection.

Transcribathon.eu is a crowdsourcing platform for the enrichment, such as transcription, annotation and geo-referencing of historical documents available through the Europeana Collections Portal.

Archive Project

From 2019 to 2022, Facts & Files was commissioned by the Berlin State Archives to inventorise the record group of minutes of meetings of the Berlin Senate, the municipal administration of Berlin.

Facts & Files was commissioned in 2020 by the district office Steglitz-Zehlendorf to archive the papers of Karl Fischer and to compile an exhibition concept on it.

Facts & Files was commissioned by the Berlin Museum of Natural History in 2020 to catalogue archival records and coordinate the archive project.