The Arc of History Lecture Series: Austria 1900 - 2020
We are excited to continue our series of lectures launched in 2024, reflecting on Austrian history, identity and creativity over a turbulent 120 year span.
The lectures will be of particular interest to those who have recently acquired Austrian citizenship, or are considering applying.
For new Austrian citizens: In case the event is sold out, please write an email to office@acflondon.org to join the waiting list.
Lecture 8: Reconstructing Loss – Art Restitution and Provenance Research in Austria
By Pia Schölnberger
This lecture explores the history and present practice of art restitution and provenance research in Austria in the aftermath of National Socialism. Drawing on case studies from Austrian federal museums and collections, it traces how objects became separated from their owners through persecution, forced displacement, confiscation and the destruction of entire social and cultural worlds.
Pia Schölnberger is Head of the Commission for Provenance Research and the Office of the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport.
She studied History and German Studies and holds a PhD from the University of Vienna. Prior to her current position, she worked at the Albertina Museum, the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism, and the memorial sites Schloss Hartheim and Am Spiegelgrund.
Her work and publications focus on provenance research, art restitution, Austrian contemporary history, and colonial contexts in museums and collections. She has overseen numerous restitution and repatriation processes and has represented Austria internationally on issues of Nazi-looted art and historical responsibility. Among her major projects is the Austrian Shoah Memorial at Maly Trostinec in Belarus, inaugurated in 2019.
Katherine Klinger is the initiator of the lecture series The Arc of History. Previously, she was director of Second Generation Trust, a UK-based charity specialising in post-Holocaust generational consequences. She organised a number of ground-breaking conferences in London, Berlin and Vienna in the nineties, aimed at bringing together descendants of both victims and perpetrators. Katherine ran the Education Department of the Wiener Holocaust Library for a decade. She has recently acquired Austrian citizenship.
About the Arc of History Lecture Series:
The series commences with the last decades and the onset of Modernity from 1900. This was a profoundly significant period both artistically and intellectually, with far-reaching influence and importance, both nationally and internationally. Against this backdrop, the lectures consider significant Jewish contributions to the period, alongside the darker forces gathering momentum, culminating in the tragic fate of Austrian Jewry and other victims.
Austrian complicity, together with a postwar victim narrative, led many to shun a country that formally had nurtured some of the greatest achievements and minds of the early 20th century. With a growing recognition of the need to reassess its history, Austria finally commenced, in the mid-nineties, its own unique process to repair some of the mid-century rupture. The announcement in 2020, enshrined in law, that all Austrian descendants of NS persecution have the right of citizenship, is an important and significant contribution to this process. To date, over 35,000 people from across the world have acquired Austrian citizenship and it is estimated that the numbers will rise considerably in the next decade.
The final lecture in the series will reflect on the implications and meaning of citizenship in a country where connection has often been associated with tragedy and ambivalence, and many have rarely, if ever, even visited. As a new chapter opens, perhaps a new sense of purpose, opportunity and responsibility emerges.
