The Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Central Institute for Art History), is an independent art-historical research institute in Germany. The institute resides in the former administration building of the National Socialist party near Königsplatz in Munich.
The Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (ZI) in Munich is the only independent art historical research institute in Germany. As a research institution with both national and international orientation and networks, the Zentralinstitut is a locus of art historical research. With its rich program of scholarly events open to the public the ZI understands its role as a forum for scholarly exchange and discussion of current methodological issues and topics in art history. The ZI has one of the largest and most significant art historical libraries worldwide, counting over 600,000 volumes and around 1,140 current periodical subscriptions. These join the image holdings of its photographic archive (around 900,000 items) as well as numerous international online resources and databases to make the ZI a major service institution offering outstanding opportunities for art historical research.
The Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, founded in 1946/1947, is located in the Munich “Kunstareal” and thus in direct proximity to the nearby museums, universities and academies, making the institute a privileged venue for art historical research and scholarship.
The institute is supported by the Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and Art and supervised by an international board of trustees. It defines itself as both a place of academic exchange and a platform for international encounters. It organizes lectures and symposia and edits various art history publications, for instance, the Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte and the Kunstchronik, an art journal featuring articles on museum matters, important exhibitions and art historical conferences, and the preservation of monuments and historic buildings. The institute also maintains one of the most comprehensive art libraries worldwide with more than 560,000 volumes, 1,250 current periodicals and over 50,000 auction sales catalogues and an extensive collection of photographs of artworks.
After its foundation in 1946, the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte started its activities in 1947 under its first director Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich. After his retirement in 1970, Willibald Sauerländer succeeded him as the second director of the ZI. The latter was followed in 1991 by Wolf Tegethoff. In 2015, Ulrich Pfisterer was also appointed director of the institute. Both Tegethoff and Pfisterer are currently collaborating as the leaders of the ZI.
The institute sees itself as a “place of scientific exchange and international encounters” and is the only art-historical research institute of supraregional importance in Germany and also the only non-university art-historical research institute in the Federal Republic of Germany. The central institute organizes lectures and conferences. The institute’s various publications include the real lexicon on German art history (since January 2015 www.rdklabor.de) and the Monatsblatt Kunstchronik.
The Zentralinstitut offers unique opportunities for art history research in Germany: the library of the Zentralinstitut, a free-lance library, holds more than 500,000 volumes, about 1,250 regularly subscribed journals and more than 60,000 auction catalogs, making it one of the world’s largest art libraries. The library has a catalog of OPAC catalogs, the Kubikat, together with three German historical art institutes, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, and the German Forum of Art History in Paris. The Kubikat shows not only individual volumes, but also essays. The photo library of the Zentralinstitut provides its collections. These include a collection of about 650,000 black and white photographs, the online accessible color slide archive for wall and ceiling painting and microfiche collections. The color slide archive for wall and ceiling painting has also been integrated into the Prometheus picture archive since November 2005.
Numerous works of art, which had been shown in national socialist Germany at large exhibitions, were not shown after 1945 and were not shown. The Central Institute has been making it accessible online since October 2011, to enable a debate on society and art history.