[MSN] Tale of those who recovered European art a masterpiece

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/news/article/49265/tale-of-those-who-recovered-
european-art-a-masterpiece/
 
Robert Edsel holds a photographic replica of a recovered painting that has
now been returned to its rightful owner in Poland. The former oilman is now
working full time on recovering lost art that was stolen by the Nazis during
World War II. (Jim Mahoney/Dallas Morning News/MCT)

PopWire: News, Reviews and Commentary
Tale of those who recovered European art a masterpiece
by David Tarrant
The Dallas Morning News (MCT)
1 October 2007
  
DALLAS-Robert Edsel will tell you he's no Indiana Jones. But the former
Dallas oilman has traded the search for Texas black gold for what he calls
the greatest treasure hunt in history. 

Like the swashbuckling Jones, Edsel has faced countless roadblocks and
general skepticism. 

The Allied force rescued thousands of works, including many of Europe's most
famous masterpieces. "I would say it's the great untold story of World War
II," he says. "To try to convince people that there's still a great, untold
story about World War II out there-you're really swimming upstream." 

He sees the story as nothing short of epic: How an obscure group of 350 men
and women helped save Western civilization from the Nazis' unprecedented and
systematic looting and destruction of Europe's great paintings, monuments
and other cultural treasures. 

Over the last 10 years, Edsel, 50, has devoted his time and a considerable
amount of his fortune-"well north of $3 million"-on a mission that many have
seen as quixotic. 

He wrote and self-published a book, "Rescuing Da Vinci," that included
hundreds of rare photos he found in musty government archives. He has also
co-produced a documentary, "The Rape of Europa." 

What keeps this story relevant, says Edsel, are the fresh headlines about
looted masterpieces that are just now being located and restored to their
rightful owners. 

"This is today's news," he says. 

The oil business took a lot of research and a willingness to take risks and
act on educated hunches. So does his new pursuit. 

"I identify with the excitement of discovery," he says. "There's something
there, and you go find it." 

About 10 years ago, the self-described "Type Triple A" found himself in
unfamiliar territory-a midlife stall. Growing up with dreams of becoming a
professional tennis player, he pursued the sport with a fierce passion,
becoming a nationally ranked player on his high school and college teams. 

But when he realized he couldn't excel on the pro circuit, he turned to
business. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1979, he
went to work for a family friend in the oil business. A quick 18 months
later, he left to start his own company. 

Despite his company's success, something was missing. By the mid-'90s, work
consumed 100 percent of his time, but only 20 percent of his abilities, he
says. "I felt like a gerbil on the treadmill." 

Thinking "there had to be more to life," he sold his company and went to
Europe with his wife and 2-year-old son. They left on Leap Day 1996. After a
brief stay in Paris, they visited Italy and fell in love with Florence.
There, in one of the greatest art centers in the world, they decided to
settle down. 

Edsel had never shown much interest in art. But now he tackled it with a
characteristic obsession. He hired a local art professor to be his personal
tutor, and they visited museums. He devoured books about art and cultural
history. 

Still, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. 

Then one day in 1997, while he stood on the Ponte Vecchio, a medieval bridge
over the Arno River in Florence, a thought occurred to him: How was it that
this bridge-one of Europe's great cultural treasures-hadn't been destroyed
during World War II? For that matter, how had so much of Europe's great
artwork survived a war that had destroyed so much of the continent? 

"I was so embarrassed, and I didn't want to ask anyone, because I figured
they're going to think I'm the dumbest person ever," he says. "Much to my
surprise, others didn't know how this stuff survived the war, either." 

Reinvigorated, Edsel decided to discover and tell the story of what happened
to cultural Europe during Adolf Hitler's Nazi reign. Hitler's megalomania
extended well beyond ruling Europe. He wanted to create a new civilization
based on the Nazis' belief in the superiority of the Germanic race. 

In his youth, Hitler was a struggling artist who was denied admission to
study at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler's deep resentment over his
rejection by the academy's predominantly Jewish faculty helped fuel his
anti-Semitism and obsession with creating a world-class cultural center. 

Hitler set out to build the Fuhrer Museum in his hometown of Linz, Austria,
an art "acropolis" that would outshine the Louvre in Paris and the Hermitage
in Russia as the greatest museum in Europe, if not the world. 

He and his henchmen took time from war planning to draw up lists of the
greatest works of art throughout Europe and then set out systematically to
obtain them-usually on the heels of a military invasion. 

The definitive book on the subject was "The Rape of Europa," by Lynn
Nicholas, a 512-page volume published in 1994. A brilliant piece of
scholarship, it is not very accessible to the average reader, Edsel says. 

He met with Nicholas and then set out to produce a companion book to hers,
which would rely more on images than text. 

Edsel tracked down and interviewed the few remaining survivors among the
group that was known as the "Monuments Men." (The official name was the
Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program.) Along with a team of assistants,
he explored dusty, government warehouses, digging up hundreds of
long-forgotten files filled with extraordinary photos, which showed such
things as looted masterpieces discovered stashed away in an Austrian salt
mine. 

He sees the book and documentary as a chance to honor a unique group of
individuals who had rescued much of the world's greatest art, but who had
become mostly a footnote in history. 

This small Allied force, which included art historians and curators, was
responsible for identifying, protecting and rescuing the thousands of
paintings, sculptures and other cultural treasures, which included many of
Europe's most famous masterpieces. 

"Robert was very excited about the story and felt it should be wider known
and appreciated," says Edmund "Ted" Pillsbury, former director of the
Kimbell Art Museum and the Meadows Museum, who wrote the forward to Edsel's
book. 

"He assembled and published for the first time a lot of photographs that had
been unknown and neglected," he said, calling Edsel's book "an essential
companion piece" to the scholarly Nicholas work. 

Edsel also met with filmmakers who had the film rights to the story and
decided to co-produce a documentary, "The Rape of Europa," based on the
author's book of the same name. 

Many of the looted paintings were hidden in salt mines and other underground
depositories. While filming the documentary, Edsel squeezed into the winding
tunnels of the salt mine in Altaussee, Austria, where thousands of pieces of
art had been hidden during the war, only to be discovered and rescued by the
Monuments Men. 

"I think it was an adventure for him," says Pillsbury. 

He also believes that Edsel's work points out how the Monuments Men helped
influence post-war American culture. Many members of the military's
monuments task force returned to the United States to become directors and
curators of museums. They brought an expertise in European culture that
benefited the growth of the American art scene, Pillsbury says. 

In June, after Edsel's relentless lobbying efforts, Congress passed a
resolution honoring the World War II team's efforts. 

Edsel also recently set up a nonprofit foundation to help promote the legacy
of the Monuments Men, who included Richard Howard, one of the first
directors of the Dallas Museum of Art. Edsel's office includes snapshots of
these men, now in their 80s and 90s, with Edsel. 

The foundation's mission also includes raising awareness of the need to
protect art and cultural treasures in the midst of war. 

"Frankly, that didn't happen in Baghdad," he says, referring to public
looting of museums in the early days of the Iraq war. Protecting the
cultural treasures of Iraq wasn't a priority, Edsel says. 

"And that is the key distinction with World War II," in which President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower understood the need to
protect and preserve the cultural heritage of the countries in which they
were fighting. 

Finally, Edsel also sees the foundation taking a role in helping with
restitution of art that was lost during the Nazi era. 

That includes art brought home by scavenging GIs and quietly hidden away in
trunks and attics. 

"The foundation exists to help people who might be the kids or grandchildren
of a veteran, who might have something and don't know what to do about it,"
Edsel says. 

Perhaps the most notorious such case involved a Texas soldier who, in the
waning days of World War II, took priceless medieval treasures hidden in a
cave near Quedlinburg, Germany. 

Joe T. Meador, an Army lieutenant, was believed to have taken the treasures
from their hiding place when his Army unit occupied the area in April 1945
and shipped them back to his hometown of Whitewright. 

After his death in 1980, two relatives tried to sell the collection of
ancient illuminated manuscripts, reliquaries and other religious artifacts
dating back at least a millennium. Lawyers for the two said their clients
never learned from their brother that the artworks were stolen and a
criminal case was dropped. 

Running a nonprofit foundation isn't nearly as lucrative as the oil
business. But Edsel hasn't considered going back to his old line of work,
even as the price of oil skyrocketed and former competitors grew richer. 

"What drives me is meaningfulness and feeling fulfilled and trying to use
all my abilities," Edsel says. "That's why it's so satisfying for me now."