Why Your Data
Why are we researching paintings from Europe which are now in US museums?
The focus of our project is on ‘paintings’, since traditionally they have better provenance documentation than works on paper or sculptures. We also understand that US museums are at the forefront of publishing collection information online, and that such information has the ability to unlock the untapped scientific potential of provenance research for art historical scholarship. We furthermore acknowledge that Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modern paintings are some of the most thoroughly-studied objects in art history and can therefore offer detailed provenance documentation—documentation that is just waiting to be analyzed on a large scale.
Why do we want to work with a diverse range of museums?
In order to map the multi-faceted history of American collecting of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings over more than 150 years, we aim to trace both the typical routes and the unusual paths that objects took across the Atlantic and, indeed, the US. Through the AAM and the AAMD, we have identified 149 museums in 116 cities in America that are relevant to our project’s scope. Thus far, we have gathered provenance information on 6,295 artworks from 36 museums (see our ‘List of Museums’). Our research is currently biased towards large, East Coast museums, however, with one too many blind spots! But you can help change that. As far as we’re concerned, every museum, every object, and every acquisition counts.
Why do we need your help?
To be as representative as possible, we aim to analyze the circulation of paintings by 509 artists from 47 countries who are known to have produced work in Europe between 1860 and 1945 (see our ‘List of Artists’). For over 60 percent of these artists, however, there is no catalogue raisonné. So far, we have found 287 artists represented in 36 museum collections across the US — with the caveat that many museums, both large and small, are still missing from our dataset (see our ‘List of Museums’). In order to reach our goal of including as many Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings as possible, we are thus calling on your help.
What are our intentions?
As an independent and experimental research project, we have no agenda but to generate new and useful knowledge. Indeed, we are a non-profit research lab at a state-funded German university. And while we are offering a service, we are hoping to engage in an exchange of information, above all.
What do we mean to do with your data?
Once we have received your public collection information, we will structure, clean, and enrich it alongside data from other museums. Then, as soon as we have fully processed the cross-institutional dataset, we will analyze, visualize and contextualize the information for the advancement of art historical scholarship. In the long run, we would like to publish the dataset under a Creative Commons license with programmers in mind, so that other digital humanities researchers might query it for their purposes. At every stage, we will of course be sure to record and credit your museum’s participation.