What We Do
What is the scope of our project ‘Modern Migrants’?
Our research project ‘Modern Migrants: Paintings from Europe in US Museums’ aims to analyze thousands of provenance records of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings created in Europe between 1860 and 1945. Thus far, we have collated provenance information on 6,295 artworks and counting.
What is our research question?
In a nutshell: when, why, and how did paintings from Europe enter US museum collections? By exploring thousands of provenance records, we aim to identify temporal, spatial, social, and conceptual trends and network dimensions. We will be paying special attention to the role that political upheavals, dynamics of transatlantic art markets, and both individual and institutional collecting strategies played in the circulation of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings.
How do we approach our research?
While our goals are art historical in nature, we use computational methods to assist with the study of unprecedented quantities of data, or what is otherwise known as ‘Big Data’. We treat our data findings like primary source materials, which require interpretation and contextualization by scholars.
Why are we working with ‘Big Data’?
In order to identify temporal, spatial, social, and conceptual trends, as well as patterns and outliers, we need to work with ‘Big Data’. This is because, as Schich et al. (2017) observe in their publication Network Dimensions in the Getty Provenance Index, ‘Big Data’ allows for “a ‘distant reading’ of the (trans)national circulation of artworks, social networks of agents, and cultural consumption more generally”.
What do we produce?
We produce original, art historical scholarship by gaining new insights into the circulation of art and the histories of collecting and art market practices. In order to realize the still untapped scientific potential of provenance research, we build large datasets of structured provenance data, together with subsets of provenance linked open data. We do so for the benefit of current and future scholarship across both museums and academia.