Where Tech and Ambition Meet Art History
Wildenstein Plattner Institute and Navigating.art
As we mark our 10th anniversary in December 2025, we continue to highlight the projects that shape the Foundation’s ecosystem and the ambition that drives them.
Today, we spotlight a story where technology and art scholarship intersect to transform access to art history.
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Mikhail Nilov and Hannah Danes; Claude Monet The Revised Catalogue Raisonné
With support from the Hasso Plattner Foundation, the Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI) and Navigating.art are reshaping how researchers and cultural institutions around the world engage with digitized archival materials. What once could only be referenced in physical archives is now available for free to an international audience through a digital platform built by Navigating.art to serve the next generation of art historical research.
And the scale of this transformation is nothing short of extraordinary.
To date, over 100,000 digitized archival materials have been made available online, alongside digital catalogues raisonnés on major artists including Romare Bearden, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Tom Wesselmann. These scholarly tools offer deep insight into an artist’s body of work, complete with high-resolution images, provenance records, and integrated archival material. With enhanced search functionality and a sleek, intuitive interface developed by Navigating.art, these digital publications go far beyond traditional formats, making complex research more accessible than ever before.
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Ambroise Vollard Records, c. 1842–1952; [j7kcj1jq], The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
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The Romare Bearden Catalogue Raisonné Project. Edited and compiled by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
The WPI has published 24 archival collections online, including the Ambroise Vollard Records, the Galerie Étienne Bignou Photo Archive, and collections related to major American artists, such as Romare Bearden Papers and Tom Wesselmann Papers. For the WPI’s release of the Romare Bearden Audio Visual Materials, Navigating.art introduced a media player into its platform, advancing how multimedia collections can be explored, experienced, and studied.
“I marvel at the work of the WPI. There are few sites as rich in essential primary source research material,” says Kenneth Soehner, Arthur K. Watson Chief Librarian at the Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Each of these projects is grounded in the idea that access to knowledge should not be limited by geography or privilege. The Hasso Plattner Foundation, WPI, and Navigating.art are opening the field and inviting the world to explore, learn, and contribute.
Because in art history, just like in every field of knowledge, ambition takes us further when it’s shared.
Then to Now: Stories that Shaped Us
For our anniversary, we are sharing stories from across our ecosystem – snapshots of the people and ideas that drive them. New stories will appear on our anniversary page until December 2025. We invite you to follow along - and perhaps, find inspiration of your own.
