The Man Behind the "Monuments Men"
Today, we throw the word “Nazi” to describe people we disagree with way too casually. I think it cheapens the memory of the people the actual Nazi’s murdered, and cheapens the effort it took to dislodge them from power.
Capital Thinking • Issue #136 • View online
“Robert wrote two books about how the US tried to help rectify the problem. One became a movie, Monuments Men. The other, Saving Italy is not a movie yet but it should be.
As I get older, I have a new respect for Eisenhower as a classically educated man. He is the one that installed the Monuments Men into the ranks. He put the orders out to recruit art curators, historians and then put them in the field.
It is simply amazing and that aspect of battle continues to this day in American forces.”
- Jeff Carter, Points and Figures
My friend Robert Edsel has done a lot for the art world. He brought a lot of transparency where there was none.
When the Nazi’s took over Germany and Europe, they looted a lot of art. They didn’t steal only art that belonged to Jewish citizens. They also looted timeless cultural treasures from Christian churches all across Europe.
In the ensuing mess, it was sometimes impossible to track that art down.
Robert wrote two books about how the US tried to help rectify the problem. One became a movie, Monuments Men. The other, Saving Italy is not a movie yet but it should be.
As I get older, I have a new respect for Eisenhower as a classically educated man. He is the one that installed the Monuments Men into the ranks. He put the orders out to recruit art curators, historians and then put them in the field.
It is simply amazing and that aspect of battle continues to this day in American forces.
Here is a speech Robert dug up that Eisenhower gave after the war. It was at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s powerful.
Read more from Points and Figures ==>Hunting Nazi Treasure
And speaking of stolen art ...
A small-town couple left behind a stolen painting worth over $100 million — and a big mystery
“Jerry and Rita Alter kept to themselves. They were a lovely couple, neighbors in the small New Mexico town of Cliff would later tell reporters. But no one knew much about them.
They may have been hiding a decades-old secret, pieces of which are now just emerging.
Among them:After the couple died, a stolen Willem de Kooning painting with an estimated worth of $160 million was discovered in their bedroom.”
More than 30 years ago, that same painting disappeared the day after Thanksgiving from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson.
And Wednesday, the Arizona Republic reported that a family photo had surfaced, showing that the day before the painting vanished, the couple was, in fact, in Tucson.“
Read more from The Washington Post ==> Stolen Art. Big Mystery.