Digitization of the French and Japanese Prints and Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings at Kunsthalle Bremen

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The aim of the project is to digitize about 17,000 French and 1,000 Japanese prints of the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Kunsthalle Bremen and to make them available for research and the general public. These two collections are unique in the German-speaking world, both in quality and because of the exceptional quantity of works.The Department of Prints and Drawings in Bremen is one of the richest and most important graphic collections in Germany and enjoys a great reputation nationally and internationally. It is the origin and the heart of the Bremen collection but it is also the least known part, since works on paper can only be exhibited for limited periods of three to four months due to their high light sensitivity. The collection of the Department has been assembled from the foundation of the Kunstverein in Bremen (the Bremen Art Association) in 1823, one of the oldest art associations in Germany.The outstanding quality of the collections of French and Japanese art is due to the fact that these were mainly assembled by three directors: Gustav Pauli, Emil Waldmann and Günter Busch, who led the institution between 1899 and 1984. They enlarged the collection with special expertise, awareness of the collection’s history and character and in productive cooperation with private collectors.The graphic works will be digitized and, for the first time, systematically incorporated into the collection database. The image contents will be indexed with the international, multilingual standard vocabulary, Iconclass. The database will be one of the few in Germany to provide public access to information on previous ownership of the works. The aim is to create a "biography" of the objects – as complete as possible for each of the approximately 1,900 drawings – from their creation to the acquisition by the Kunsthalle Bremen. Research results on previous owner biographies will to be forwarded to the Gemeinsame Normdatei (GND). The use of standard data, as well as the information on access to the collection, serves, in particular, scientific research and sustainable and broad access to the research results.The digitization project will provide the crucial database for the empirical study of the collection holdings. The digitization of the important collection of French art in particular promises to reveal essential new information, which is particularly relevant for the understanding of the collecting history under the directors Waldmann and Busch during the difficult years of World War II and the post-War period.The results of the project will be published in the online catalog of the Kunsthalle Bremen, in the Graphikportal (graphics portal) and the German Digital Library. Furthermore they will be presented under the aspect of their particular art historical interconnections in an online exhibition and in an exhibition of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Kunsthalle Bremen.