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This book explains for the first time the full story of the wartime adventures of Britain's greatest art treasures. At first the pictures and other artifacts were distributed amongst a number of large country houses. Initially the owners of these houses almost fought one another for the right to house the Treasures. Later, when further accommodation was needed for treasures from the provincial museums, the tables turned and the Office of Works was reduced to bribing owners by promising that they would be spared billetees, and that their houses would be immune from requisitioning. By mid 1940 however, circumstances transpired that made the country houses untenable. German air bases in northern France made the whole of Britain vulnerable. Eventually two deep underground repositories were constructed, one in Wales and one in Wiltshire, and by the end of 1942 virtually all the cultural heritage of the nation was concentrated there. Building and operation of these underground treasure houses did not, however, go smoothly, as described here.
"In what has been called one of the most important pieces of investigative journalism ever undertaken in the art world, Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov tell the story of how the Russians stole millions of art objects from European museums and private collectors in the final days of World War II and hid them away for fifty years. The Nazi confiscation of art from Jewish families and occupied countries has been well documented, but the story of what happened to the art after the Nazis were defeated in 1945 was virtually unknown until recently." "Secret "trophy brigades" were established early in 1945, with specific instructions from Stalin to remove art from Germany and ship it back to ...
'Geeks triumph over the forces of darkness: nothing could have given me greater pleasure. Combining an exciting story with scrupulous research, Caroline Shenton has done her unlikely heroes proud' - Lucy Worsley As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London's museums, galleries and archives formulated ingenious plans to send the nation's highest prized objects to safety. Using stately homes, tube tunnels, slate mines, castles, prisons, stone quarries and even their own homes, a dedicated bunch of unlikely misfits packed up the nation's greatest treasures and, in a race against time, dispatched them throughout the country on a series of top-secret wartime adventures. National Treasures highlights a moment from our history when an unlikely coalition of mild-mannered civil servants, social oddballs and metropolitan aesthetes became the front line in the heritage war against Hitler. Caroline Shenton shares the interwoven lives of ordinary people who kept calm and carried on in the most extraordinary of circumstances in their efforts to save the Nation's historic identity.
Defending National Treasures explores the fate of art and cultural heritage during the Nazi occupation of France. The French cultural patrimony was a crucial locus of power struggles between German and French leaders and among influential figures in each country. Karlsgodt examines the preservation policy that the Vichy regime enacted in an assertion of sovereignty over French art museums, historic monuments, and archeological sites. The limits to this sovereignty are apparent from German appropriations of public statues, Jewish-owned art collections, and key "Germanic" works of art from French museums. A final chapter traces the lasting impact of the French wartime reforms on preservation p...
The passionate, true story of one man's quest to reclaim what the Nazis stole from his family--their beloved art collection--and to restore their legacy. Simon Goodman's grandparents came from German Jewish banking dynasties and perished in concentration camps. And that's almost all he knew--his father rarely spoke of their family history or heritage. But when he passed away, and Simon received his father's papers, a story began to emerge. The Gutmanns, as they were known then, rose from a small Bohemian hamlet to become one of Germany's most powerful banking families. They also amassed a world-class art collection that included works by Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, and many others, including ...
During World War II, the Nazis plundered from occupied countries millions of items of incalculable value estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Spearheaded by Hermann Goring the looting program quickly created the largest private art collection in the world, exceeding the collections amassed by the Metropolitan in New York, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris and the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow. By the end of the war, the Nazis had stolen roughly one-fifth of the entire art treasures of the world. This book explores the formation of the Nazi art collection and the methods used by Goring and his party to strip occupied Europe of a large part of its artistic heritage.
In Duty Free Art, filmmaker and writer Hito Steyerl wonders how we can appreciate, or even make art, in the present age. What can we do when arms manufacturers sponsor museums, and some of the world's most valuable artworks are used as a fictional currency in a global futures market that has nothing to do with the work itself? Can we distinguish between creativity and the digital white noise that bombards our everyday lives? Exploring artefacts as diverse as video games, Wikileaks files, the proliferation of spam, and political actions, she exposes the paradoxes within globalization, political economies, visual culture, and the status of art production.
* Each artist's work is accompanied by their own, first-hand account of war in Afghanistan* Captures the vast scale and stunning, fertile beauty of the Afghan landscape'I felt physically sick from the pit of my stomach and to be honest was now feeling vulnerable and completely outside my depth of knowledge. The world had seemingly gone mad and I was having visions of the base now being ransacked; I was confused and unsure what to do. My solution was to do the only thing that I could do. I climbed the nearest sangar and started to draw.' - Jules GeorgeJules George, war artist, traveled to Helmand, Afghanistan, in 2010, in the wake of its bloodiest year for British troops. War Artists in Afgha...
In August 1939, curators at the Louvre nestled the world's most famous painting into a special red velvet-lined case and spirited her away to the Loire Valley as part of the biggest museum evacuation in history. As the Germans neared Paris in 1940, the French raced to move the masterpieces still further south, then again and again during the war, crisscrossing the southwest of France. Throughout the German occupation, the museum staff fought to keep the priceless treasures out of the hands of Hitler and his henchmen, often risking their lives to protect the country's artistic heritage. Saving Mona Lisa is the sweeping, suspenseful narrative of their struggle.