A major new history of how African nations, starting in the 1960s, sought to reclaim the art looted by Western colonial powers For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa's Struggle for Its Art, Benedicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. One of the world's foremost experts on restitution and cultural heritage, Savoy investigates extensive, previously unpublished sources to reveal that the roots of the struggle extend much further back than prominent recent debates indicate, and that these efforts were covered up by myriad opponents. Shortly after 1960, when eighteen former colonies in Africa gained independence, a movement to pursue repatriation was spearheaded by African intellectual and political classes. Savoy looks at pivotal events, including the watershed speech delivered at the UN General Assembly by Zaire's president, Mobutu Sese Seko, which started the debate regarding restitution of colonial-era assets and resulted in the first UN resolution on the subject. She examines how German museums tried to withhold information about their inventory and how the British Parliament failed to pass a proposed amendment to the British Museum Act, which protected the country's collections. Savoy concludes in the mid-1980s, when African nations enacted the first laws focusing on the protection of their cultural heritage. Making the case for why restitution is essential to any future relationship between African countries and the West, Africa's Struggle for Its Art will shape conversations around these crucial issues for years to come.

Not only Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering utilized the occupation of France during the Second World War to procure artworks for their collections - German museums also made acquisitions at the time. The advantageous foreign exchange rate and the large range of artworks, for instance, from seized Jewish property, afforded favorable opportunities. French museums like the Louvre also expanded their holdings during this time. Many purchases by German museums were restituted to France in the postwar period, while some have remained in the collections until today and are first now becoming a focus of research. The essays in the volume from German and French perspectives analyze the similarities and differences in the activities of museums on the French art market during the occupation for the first time. Adolf Hitler et Hermann Goering ne sont pas les seuls a avoir profite de l'Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale pour acquerir des oeuvres d'art pour leurs collections - les musees allemands y ont egalement fait des acquisitions. Le taux de change avantageux et l'offre importante d'oeuvres d'art provenant par exemple de proprietes juives spoliees ont offert des opportunites favorables. Les musees francais, comme le Louvre, ont egalement elargi leurs collections a cette epoque. De nombreuses acquisitions de musees allemands ont ete restituees a la France dans l'apres-guerre, mais certaines sont restees dans les collections jusqu'a ce jour et n'ont attire l'attention des chercheurs que recemment. Les contributions de ce volume analysent pour la premiere fois, des points de vue francais et allemand, les points communs et les differences entre les activites des musees sur le marche de l'art francais pendant l'Occupation.

The ongoing "Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon is the most extensive, up-to-date and authoritative art history reference work on artists. Each volume profiles approximately 7,000 artists from all time periods and across the globe.

From 1800 onward young artists from the German-speaking world flocked to the Paris studios of Jacques-Louis David, Paul Delaroche and Thomas Couture. The encyclopedia's individual articles make available previously unknown data and facts and provide new insights into the importance of Paris as place of artist's training, the career of several generations of painters and the transnational production of art in the 19th century.

The ongoing "Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon is the most extensive, up-to-date and authoritative art history reference work on artists. Each volume profiles approximately 7,000 artists from all time periods and across the globe.

The third supplementary volume (starting withBeranek) will contain approx. 1,400 additional biographies of artists. More than 100 sources, mostly regional artist encyclopedias, and current publications were used, furthermore information from the AKL editorial archive itself. Especially for the contemporary artists intensive online research was accomplished.

Franz Theodor Kugler (1808 1858) gehort unbestritten zu den ersten namhaften deutschen Kunsthistorikern. Ihm verdankt man insbesondere die Einbettung der Kunstgeschichte als asthetische Auseinandersetzung mit den uberlieferten Kunstwerken in die allgemeine Geschichte. 1837 veroffentlichte er sein Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei von Konstantin dem Grossen bis auf die neuere Zeit. Bald darauf folgte ein zweites bahnbrechendes Werk, das Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (1842). In weiteren Schriften legte Kugler den Akzent auf die Kunstgeschichte Berlins und der Umgebung und versuchte zugleich, die Kunstwissenschaft mit geographischen Betrachtungen zu verknupfen. Die Geschichte der Baukunst, an der Jakob Burckhardt und Wilhelm Lubke mitwirkten, zeugt von seiner Neigung zu Gesamtdarstellungen. Kugler war auch als Kunstreferent des preussischen Kulturministeriums tatig und konnte seine Ansichten in die Praxis der Kunstverwaltung umsetzen. Sein weitverzweigtes Netz von Bekannten und Freunden unter den Berliner Schriftstellern der Zeit, von Emanuel Geibel und Paul Heyse bis zum jungen Theodor Fontane, illustriert eine paradigmatische Verbindung von Literatur- und Kunstbetrachtung, die von der Zusammenarbeit mit Adolph Menzel an der Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (1840) oder aber von seinen eigenen Gedichten weiter dokumentiert wird. Der vorliegende Band widmet sich erstmals ausfuhrlich der Figur Kuglers, die weitgehend in Vergessenheit geraten ist, obwohl sie fur das Verstandnis der Kunstwissenschaft, der Berliner Salonkultur und der allgemeinen deutschen Kulturgeschichte von den 1830er bis zu den 1850er Jahren unerlassliche Schlussel liefert."