War & Art: A Tribute to The Monuments Men

At its commencement ceremony on May 22, MassArt will award an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree to the Monuments Men. This group of approximately 345 men and women from 13 nations participated in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program within the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied Armies during World War II. They rescued art and other cultural property from the war’s destruction and the Nazi’s systematic looting.

Manet Painting recovered from Merkers Mine in Germany (from the website of the Monument Men Foundation For the Preservation of Art)

In tribute to the Monuments Men, the Godine Library is exhibiting a range of materials:  books, posters, playing cards, videos– on several themes.  We hope to recount the Monuments Men’s challenges and heroics more than 60 years ago as well as explore similar challenges we face today, many concrete and dangerous, others philosophical and political. As we can, we’ll be posting to this blog, presenting additional information reflecting the exhibition themes:

• the Monuments Men
• continuing work to return art stolen from Jewish families and others during the Holocaust
• recent destruction and looting of cultural material in Iraq and Afganistan, and efforts to mitigate those, including a new initiative of the U.S. Armed Services
• scholarly debate about the nature of cultural property and ethical obligations regarding its ownership and protection.

The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men respected the cultures of others. They risked their lives to preserve that culture. Two Monuments Men were killed in action protecting treasures. As a group the Monuments Men changed the course of history by returning more than 5 million cultural items after the war. Help us preserve the legacy of the Monuments Men and put it to use in protecting cultural treasures from future armed conflict. (from the website of the Monument Men Foundation For the Preservation of Art)

(from the website of the Monument Men Foundation For the Preservation of Art)

Monuments Man Sgt. Kenneth Lindsay gazing at the ancient Egyptian Bust of Queen Nefertiti. On view as part of the Art & War exhibit is a plaster cast of this bust as well as a selection of books about the ethics of cultural appropriation. Does the Nefertiti bust reside in Berlin and the Parthenon marbles reside in London for reasons of preservation and public access or colonialism?

The following images from the 1946 exhibition catalog in the Godine’ Library’s collection, Paintings Looted from Holland give a sense of the work of the Monuments Men and the enormous value of the artworks  they recovered.

Room Before the MFA&A Took Over with Leftover Nazi Propaganda Material



Koenigsplatz, Munich, With Art Collecting Point in Center



Room in Art Collecting Point after MFA & A Took Over



Token Load for Holland. 26 Masterpieces Taken on Board American Plane



Dutch Convoy Starting for Holland

From the book Paintings looted from Holland : returned through the efforts of the United States Armed Forces. A collection to be exhibited in … Ann Arbor, Michigan, Baltimore, Maryland, Buffalo, New York [etc.] … 1946



Hendrick Avercamp, Skating

Gerard Ter Borch, Jacob de Graeff



Pieter Claesz, Still Life



Arent A. Gelder, Ernst van Beveren



Pieter Codde, Couple in Interior



Gerret Heda, Showpiece.



Jan Davidsz. De Heem, Vivant Oranje



Thomas De Keyser, A Lady



Thomas De Keyser, A Young Tourist



Nicolaes Maes, “Juno” or the Eavesdropper



Aert Van Der Neer, Mills at Night



Jacobus S. Mancadan, Classical Landscape



Jacob Van Ruisdael, Beach of Egmond



Jacob Van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem

For more information about the Monuments Men, including video interviews and clips from the film Rape of Europa, please visit http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/.

Protecting Cultural Property in Iraq

In the early days of the Iraq war, apparently in favor of protecting Iraq’s oil ministry, the United States abandoned that nation’s national library and museum to fire and looting respectively. Since then we’ve all learned more about Iraq’s cultural treasures, what’s at stake, and what we can do.

Archeologist and MassArt Professor of Art History John Russell has long been outspoken about the need to protect Iraq’s cultural treasures. He even put his life on the line. For nine months at the start of the war, Russell served as an advisor to the Ministry of Culture in Baghdad, where he helped renovate museums and protect archeological sites from looting. You can read about his service in Andrew Lawler’s Boston Globe article “The Treasure Hunter,” and read John’s own thoughts in his essay “Why Should We Care” that appeared in the winter 2003 issue of Art Journal.



Professor John Russell

More recently Russell been working on two projects with the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting cultural property during wartime. First, the USCBS successfully lobbied the U.S. Senate to ratify (this past September) the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Second, Russell and the USCBS have been delivering cultural-property-protection training to U.S. military personnel. You can read more about these projects in the USCBS newsletter. One aspect of the training is the design and distribution of playing cards modeled on the “Most Wanted” playing cards. Instead of bearing the images of bad guys, these cards have images of art needing protection. The Godine Library exhibition includes a deck and other educational materials that Russell helped develop.   You’ll probably notice that every card says, “ROE first.”  ROE signifies the military Rules Of Engagement.

















































Websites of Interest:

U.S. Blue Shield Committee

Antiquities Collectors Blog

Society for Historical Archaeology

FBI Art Theft Program

Interpol

Materials available for your perusal within the Godine Library exhibit Art & War:


Monographs

The looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad : the lost treasures of ancient Mesopotamia / edited by Milbry Polk and Angela M.H. Schuster. 2005

Antiquities under siege : cultural heritage protection after the Iraq war / edited by Lawrence Rothfield. 2008

The rape of Europa : the fate of Europe’s treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War / Lynn H. Nicholas. 1995

Afghanistan : hidden treasures from the National Museum, Kabul / edited by Fredrik Hiebert and Pierre Cambon. 2008

Art under a dictatorship / Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut. 1973

The lost museum : the Nazi conspiracy to steal the world’s greatest works of art / Hector Feliciano.1997

The victor weeps : Afghanistan / Fazal Sheikh.1998

Rescuing Da Vinci : Hitler and the Nazis stole Europe’s great art : America and her allies recovered it / Robert M. Edsel ; forewords by Lynn H. Nicholas and Edmund P. Pillsbury. 2006

Paintings looted from Holland : returned through the efforts of the United States Armed Forces. A collection to be exhibited in … Ann Arbor, Michigan, Baltimore, Maryland, Buffalo, New York [etc.] … 1946

Loot! : the heritage of plunder / Russell Chamberlin.1983

The plundered past [by] Karl E. Meyer.1973

Klimt’s women / edited by Tobias G. Natter and Gerbert Frodl ; texts by Neda Bei … [et al.]. 2000



















Articles

Specters of Provenance: National Loans, the Königsplatz, and Maria Eichhorn’s “Politics of Restitutions”

Alexander Alberro, Grey Room Winter 2005, No. 18: 64–81.

Films

The Rape of Europa [videorecording] / Actual Films ; in association with Agon Arts & Entertainment presents ; written, produced and directed by Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham and Bonni Cohen ; co-producer, Robert M. Edsel ; an Actual Films production, in association with Agon Arts & Entertainmentand Oregon Public Broadcasting. 2008

The Train [videorecording] / a United Artists release ; [Les Productions Artistes associés]. MGM Home Entertainment;screen story and screenplay by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis ; produced by Jules Bricken ; directed by John Frankenheimer. 1951. In August 1944 the Allied army is closing in on Paris. German commander and art fanatic Colonel Von Waldheim steals a vast collection of rare French paintings and loads them onto a train bound for Berlin. When a beloved French patriot is murdered while trying to sabotage Von Waldheim’s scheme, Labiche, a stalwart member of the Resistance, vows to stop the train at any cost.

LIBRARY SURVEY

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Thank You

Haute Fashion a la Mass Art

Spring 2009 Collection : Haute Fashion a la Mass Art

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We are featuring exquisite pieces from our special collection and archive departments.

Please come into the library to browse this exhibit.

Featured works by Sonia Delaunay and others.

Favorite Fashion Websites

MET

FIT

VISIONAIRE

Elsa Schiaparelli

John Galliano

KCI Digital Archive

Victoria & Albert

LACMA

Bata Shoe Museum

Happy Holidays from The Morton R. Godine Library

It has been a fine 2008 semester here at the library and the holiday break is upon us faster than we thought. With the winter solstice taking place only days ago we plunged right into a cold Boston winter. The library will be closed for Winter break from Dec 24th to Jan 2nd. We will be open again on January 5th. The library will be open with limited hours from 12-5pm from January 5th to January 20th. We are not open weekends during this period.

The library will be closed Wednesday January 14th.

Thanks so much for coming to see us this 2008; we look forward to seeing you in the new year!!!!!

Remember Have a Blue Christmas

Banned Books @ Mass Art

2008 Banned Book week is here at Mass Art

Please come check out some of the worlds best books that have been confronted with censorship; classics like Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.

Take The Banned Book Quiz

More Banned Books

YouTube Banned Books

A Few Extras from Mr. Warhol

This summer we were given a copy of Peter Gidal’s Andy Warhol: Films and Paintings and it was put into processing as a normal acquisition, but upon closer inspection we discovered a few surprises within the book.

This unassuming paperback is signed by Andy Warhol in marker on the title page. While that is wonderful enough to make a book special the autograph seeker also documented the book signing.  Tucked into the pages were three color machine prints including what we can only guess is the artist’s car parked outside and two photographs of Andy Warhol himself.  The photographs are stamped JAN 81, which puts the signing at about 10 years after the book was published and six years before Warhol’s death in February of 1987.

Changes at the Library

The 13th floor of the Morton Godine Library will be undergoing construction. The library has moved current periodicals temporarily to the other side of the building. The current periodicals are still on the 13th floor, they are located right when you go up the steps from the 12th floor. The back issue periodicals are still located in the same place.

The library is providing a new home for Urban Arts on the 13th floor. The library looks forward to welcoming Urban Arts to their new home. Please be sure to stop by the library and see what’s happening!

MFAWC VISIT 5/20/08

The Godine Library Goes Off To the Cape….

MFAWC Studio Interior

For our second time Godine Library was able to go to Provincetown and provide information literacy support for The Mass Arts Low Residency Program. I (Gabrielle Reed public services librarian) got to be the lucky liaison for the program. I got to bring the two boxes of art books that the library had donated for art inspiration. These were welcomed with great excitement. We decided that we would keep an empty box in Barbara Baker’s (MFAWC Coordinator) office and allow people to pick up and drop off the books there. I encouraged everyone to take a book and rotate them among themselves. It just so happens that one of the books I had brought was a being discussed in their critique moments before I arrived. Everyone was excited to have the hard copy. I hope we continue to bring books down to the program.

I started a library resources presentation and found that there were a great many questions. It was rather difficult getting through the slides because there were so many questions to be answered. So I broke from the formal presentation style and tried to address their major concerns. I ended up teaching for approximately 2 hrs straight. There was great dialog and I feel we had a successful session together.

Some of the questions asked from students were:

How do we get books from you?

How do we use the databases?

How do we get articles that aren’t full text on-line?

Where do we find images?

How do we use ARTstor?

Why can’t we use the Public Library?

Can we use the library resources after we graduate?

We discussed many of these questions and came up with answers for most but I would love to talk to library staff about how to get books from Mass Art to Provincetown efficiently. I also need to discuss contacting the director of the Provincetown Public library in order to facilitate students attaining public library cards, possibly without the charge for out-of-state status.

I gave the Master’s candidates a short ‘user’ survey that I had quickly put together. It consists of 6 questions. See the document below

Program: _____________________

Year in Program: _________________

For your creative process (artistic or academic) do you gather information from:

If Yes From Where? How often in Semester?

Book	○Yes ○No	○Hard Copy ○Online ○Both	○Mass Art ○ Local Library ○Other______	times
Journals	○Yes ○No	○Hard Copy ○Online ○Both	○Mass Art ○ Local Library ○Other______	times
Magazines	○Yes ○No	○Hard Copy ○Online ○Both	○Mass Art ○ Local Library ○Other______	times
Databases ABI Art Full Test etc.	○Yes ○No	○Hard Copy ○Online ○Both	○Mass Art ○ Local Library ○Other______	times
Films	○Yes ○No	○Hard Copy ○Online ○Both	○Mass Art ○ Local Library ○ Other_______	times
Audio recordings	○Yes ○No	○Hard Copy ○Online ○Both	○Mass Art ○ Local Library ○Other______	times

B. Since you have enrolled at Mass Art have you needed assistance with your research ? ○Yes ○No

C. If yes, how many times in the last semester have your requested it from Mass Art Library?

______Times

D. Are you satisfied with the Mass Art resources? ○Yes ○No ○ Never have used

E. Will you use these resources again? ○Yes ○No ○ Never have used

F. Would you recommend these resources to other students? ○Yes ○No ○ Never have used

I managed to get 8 students to complete the survey. This will allow me to crunch some numbers and get at least some documentation of usage for this population. I have entered the data into excel and will be running it through SPSS analytical statistics software.

For more information please look at the MFAWC website: http://www.fawc.org/mfa/index.shtml

Some pictures from the trip!

My driving companion

View from rt. 6 of dunes

Driving and shooting

Entrance to workshop

The Studios

Kambui and Felicia…resident artists

Grove Art has become Oxford Art Online

Oxford University Press has created a new database that includes the Grove Dictionary of Art, Oxford Companian to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. You can search all of these resources at once or just chose one or two to search. You can search for images, biography and bibligraphies, as well. The entries are well researched essays to get started doing research or confirm information. If you have any questions or problems please contact Kate Olender at kolender@massart.edu or feel free to call 617-879-7107.

New Periodicals Coming soon!

Journal of the Short Film.

A quarterly anthology of short films on DVD. Each issue comprises 9-11 works running 90-120 minutes. Innovative artists and media.

Selvedge.

British periodical on anything dealing with fabrics: design, handcraft, industry, fashion, traditional, high tech, decorating… Beautiful layout and photos.

Lapham’s Quarterly.

Lewis Lapham, previously editor of Harper’s, compiles the thoughts of all ages on important topics of our times. Vol.1, no.1 is entitled State of War. Excerpts and short essays by historical and contemporary figures. “…a remedy against amnesia.”

Double Take/Points of Entry.

The acclaimed magazine of photo documentaries and essays dealing with contemporary social issues, edited by Robert Coles. It suspended publication in 2003 but resumed for four issues in 2007. We will be adding these final issues.

-Richard McElroy

Technical Services/Acquisitions and Serials Librarian x.7112