The Museum of Modern Art owns approximately 600 paintings created before 1946 and acquired after 1932, that were or could have been in Continental Europe during the Nazi era. Researchers at the Museum have closely examined, and are continuing to research, the ownership, or provenance, records for works that fall within this category. The majority of these works were acquired directly from the artists or have provenance records that are sufficiently complete to eliminate the likelihood of Nazi misappropriation. Provenance research on these works, however, remains an ongoing project, and a priority, at the Museum.

In April 2000, The Museum of Modern Art's director, Glenn D. Lowry, joined other American museum directors to present testimony before The Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets, reaffirming the museum community's commitment both to assist in the discovery of objects unlawfully appropriated during the Holocaust period and to make information on collection provenance more widely available. We publish this List of Works to further this effort (and in accordance with the American Association of Museums (AAM)'s April 2001 Guidelines Concerning the Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi Era).

In September 2003, the AAM launched a Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal (www.nepip.org), thus providing a general searchable registry of objects in U.S. museum collections that were or could have been in Continental Europe during the Nazi era (1933–1945). Works on this MoMA Web site can be cross-referenced from the AAM portal.
The Museum is currently transferring detailed provenance information on the listed works from the Museum's archival records to the electronic format of this website. Ongoing provenance research on the listed works is posted periodically, in installments, and the Museum welcomes any further information on the provenance of these collection works that users of this site may be able to provide. (Please note that the Museum's archival records for all collection works are open, as they always have been, to serious researchers.) For any information or queries on works on this list, please see Contact Information.