Profiles of European Jewish Art Collections

To learn more about the culture in the Jewish world that brought forth an abundance of collectors, JDCRP is launching a project to highlight the fate of individual collections of art in Nazi-occupied countries that belonged to Jewish collectors. The project will continue the digital humanities approach used successfully with the EU-funded JDCRP pilot project on the Adolphe Schloss collection, to promote greater in-depth understanding of the cultural milieu of the collector, the mechanisms of looting, and the postwar fate of the collection.

The goal is to create a rich tapestry of the contributions to cultural life in Europe made by Jewish art collectors and owners of cultural objects. The project will highlight a variety of geographically diverse collections that belonged to collectors from various social backgrounds. The portraits will range from well-established art owners with works of museum quality to those from middle-class families of more modest means who placed value on cultural objects and the arts.

Additional research projects will include a focus on other types of cultural objects that were stolen, including libraries, historical archives, musical instruments, and Judaica.