AA2GM

Current concerns regarding contentious collecting practices of African cultural property during the colonial era have helped repositioning the arts of Africa as central to the 20^th century’s historical stakes and challenges. But what about the period of the Second World War? Deliberate avoidance, lack of interest, or lack of sources, African arts have found themselves to the margins of the history of looting, destruction and displacement of works of art during the war period. At the crossroads of current research on the translocation of works in colonial contexts and that on the looting of cultural goods between 1933 and 1945, the fate of African artefacts during the Second World War is an overlooked field of inquiry that requires the involvement of a vast network of partners with diverse profiles in Europe and Africa.

Among the questions at stake are: Which African artefacts were looted under the anti-Semitic laws enacted between 1933 and 1945? What were the issues surrounding heritage in Africa during this period? What about institutional developments on the African continent during the war? But also, how were African arts perceived by fascist regimes, whether the Third Reich or Mussolini’s? Did European museums, including Germany’s, whose collections were created and greatly enriched since the beginning of colonisation, continue to acquire African artefscts during the war? Who were the art market players in Germany, France and Italy? Finally, how many African artefacts were destroyed in German museums during the war, and was there anything specific to African collections about these destructions?

This networking project will focus on two areas. African collections acquired by German museums during the war and Franco-German trade networks on the one hand. And the impact of the war on institutional developments in Africa, particularly in Senegal, Ethiopia and Cameroon on the other. INHA is initiating this collaborative research project and building connections with curators and provenance specialists in Germany, Senegal, Ethiopia and Cameroon in order to establish a network of experts on the subject of African arts during the Second World War. Funding from the Marc Bloch Fund for Provenance Research will enable this network to be expanded and consolidated through a series of events and research visits. A series of seminars at INHA in Spring and Autumn 2026 will showcase the research in progress and provide essential opportunities for discussion. A study day at the MARKK in Hamburg in Fall 2026 and a workshop at the Théodore Monod Museum in Dakar, Senegal, in December 2026 will give network members the opportunity to focus on specific historical and cultural contexts related to the Second World War. This funding will also support archival research in German museums.