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Post by macs Fri 16 Mar 2012, 18:18

so I'm reading the book right now... just a few pages left
it's part factual of what happened during/end of war, and some part where dialogues are "made up" to link the story (not invented/just imagined around what happened and some testimonies}
I really got into it easy, and it's quite interesting for those who like war references, and art references
Quite frankly I wander what the script looks like, and it could be a very interesting project for a movie though quite a difficult one (not that easy to tackle the nazy/jews stories ...}. Why I wander most about the script though is that it does have lots of potential for being an artsy movie all about war and world cultural patrimony and what the shoah meant to it at the same time. I mean it's about arts versus war and there would be many ways in which he could make it into something visually original. Groundbreaking if great/so so if just ok. I don't know what he's got in mind ('cos it could also be a more classical "buddy movie"} but I certainly look forward to it

on a side note (i won't reveal a thing} but reading it there's one character that you instantly think he could play...

Anybody here read it ? What did you think ?


Last edited by macs on Fri 16 Mar 2012, 18:48; edited 1 time in total
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Post by party animal - not! Fri 16 Mar 2012, 18:32

yep, read it last year. Fascinating story isn't it, and a history of WWII across several countries. I'll be really interested as to how they translate so many historical facts into a script. I could imagine a massive map of Europe laid out - and covered in post-it notes!. I would love to be a location researcher. With places like Neuschwanstein being featured it should be a spectacular film.

And on a personal note, I had no idea all Britain's treasures had been moved to a mine in Snowdonia

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Post by macs Sat 17 Mar 2012, 07:44

Neuschwanstein is dreamy

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Post by it's me Sat 17 Mar 2012, 12:59

uhhhh! it's not real, no?
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Post by party animal - not! Sat 17 Mar 2012, 14:34

Oh, but it is!

It's in the Bavarian Alps on the border with Austria, and it was built by King Ludwig 11 otherwise known as The Dream King for his eccentricities, and his obsession and patronage of Wagner. He built several more beautiful castles including Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee not too many miles away and met a mysterious death in Lake Starnberg

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Post by it's me Sat 17 Mar 2012, 17:56

intriguing...
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Post by Lakin460 Sat 17 Mar 2012, 21:05

party animal...you are one smart cookie! wow, enjoy the info you posted. thx!
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Post by Katiedot Sun 18 Mar 2012, 07:09

It's a beautiful castle, about an hour's drive from Munich (where I'm from) and if it's looking a little familiar, it was also the inspiration for Walt Disney's sleeping beauty castle that you see in every Disney and Buena vista logo at the beginning and end of their films.
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Post by it's me Sun 18 Mar 2012, 09:29

ohhh my !!!

so I was right! unreal
as a fairytale! Very Happy
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Post by Polly Want A Cracker Tue 27 Mar 2012, 15:56

oh, another adaptation. george & grant will write screenplay.
must be glued to his laptop working frantically now trying to complete it. Laughing out loud or has his ghostwriters doing it.
hope it's not as yawn inducing as some others lately.
i like arthouse films. yep that's what george is best at.
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Post by Polly Want A Cracker Tue 27 Mar 2012, 18:43

story follows the U.S. government’s effort to retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis and the art experts whose skills are put to use in the campaign.


Reading
The actor-filmmaker has optioned the nonfiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by author Robert M. Edsel, which he will adapt with producing partner Grant Heslov for Sony Pictures

The book tells the story of the U.S. government’s effort to retrieve artwork stolen by Hitler's forces and the art experts whose skills are put to use in the campaign. The title comes from the name given to the U.S. and U.K. art historians and museum curators who helped the military track down the stolen pieces.
Unlike Clooney's previous directing efforts, Good Night, and Good Luck and The Ides of March, the Monuments film will likely have a big budget and play to a larger, more commercial audience.
“I’m not opposed to doing a commercial film, I’m just opposed to doing a commercial film that doesn’t feel organic to me....So if we’re going to do a commercial film we thought, 'Let’s do something that seems fun and actually have something to say.'”


Last edited by Polly Want A Cracker on Tue 27 Mar 2012, 18:47; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : he should be a politician. load of codswollop)
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Post by party animal - not! Tue 27 Mar 2012, 19:13

For 'organic' read 'based on facts' or 'delivering a message'? Book's a good find....with such a load of characters in it, and multi-locations, he'll need a massive budget, and his and other 'names' to get it 'green-lighted', so um 'commercial'.

Yep, organic is politicese for ' I'm talking a load of old codswallop'. Hilarious!

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Post by silly girl Wed 06 Jun 2012, 22:42

On fifth anniversary of Monuments Men Foundation, Robert Edsel on impact, importance of George Clooney adaptation

By Robert Wilonsky
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4:01 pm on June 6, 2012



Two months back Robert Edsel paid a visit to this newspaper’s offices, bringing with him Greg Bradsher and David Ferriero, both bigwigs at the National Archives. The occasion: Edsel, founder and president of the Dallas-based Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, was donating to the National Archives two photo albums that cataloged artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II. It wasn’t the first time the St. Mark’s and SMU graduate had done that either; the National Archives and myriad other museums, including ones in Berlin, are filled with Edsel’s discoveries revealing the true provenance of artworks plundered during The Rape of Europa — the title of Edsel’s extraordinary documentary about “the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during the Third Reich and the Second World War.”

Today, so happens, is the fifth anniversary of the Monuments Men Foundation’s founding; June 6, of course, also marks the 68th anniversary of the D-Day landings along the shores of Normandy. And in those five years Edsel has accomplished much: garnering attention and acclaim for the 345 museum directors, curators and historians charged with tracking down and returning the stolen artwork; making a movie and writing books honoring their charge; collecting a National Humanities Medal on behalf of the Monuments Men; and continuing to ID Nazi-looted artwork, even when it’s on display at his alma mater.

“Hard to believe it’s been five years,” Edsel says today. “It’s been a blink of an eye, like we see in the movies. It’s been a remarkable experience. And there are extraordinary things ahead.”

He’s referring to George Clooney’s announcement in January that he will co-write (with producing partner Grant Heslov), direct and star in The Monuments Men, a film based on Edsel’s book of the same name. Till now Edsel hasn’t said much about the pending production, but acknowledges now that “it’s the mother of all game-changers.”

Fact is, Edsel turned down numerous offers to adapt the book into a film; for years, he says, it was the very first question he was asked during Q&A sessions following speaking appearance.

“And I always told people it’ll happen sooner or later,” Edsel says. “But over the course of time we’ve been disciplined about saying no to other opportunities while waiting for the big chance. And at times it’s been painful to say no, but I believed. Audiences that come hear me speak about this on Saturday mornings when they could be out paying golf, they’re telling me people are fascinated by this story. …

“My commitment was always to make sure the broadest audience possible worldwide knew what [the Monument Men] did — the heroic acts they committed and the cultural leadership they showed during a World War. There’s no book around that can compete with the commercial appeal of conveying that in a film, though, especially with someone of the stature and significance of George Clooney. There’s always an ebb and flow for stories in Hollywood, and sometimes the timing’s not right. People of his caliber are busy with their film commitments, and he’s hugely committed to many social causes. This isn’t him just putting his name on it, but spending his time on it. Anyone going to Somalia is putting their life on the line, and he’s committed to what he believes in, and he puts his time and credibility on the line.”

Fact is, says Edsel, the timing was just right in this case. And it didn’t hurt that Edsel, like Clooney, is repped by Creative Artists Agency, one of the biggest talent agencies in the world.

“It happened to hit at a great moment, where the time was available to take a look at it,” Edsel says. “And credit to him and his team and Grant Heslov, who’s a terribly accomplished guy in his own right, for seeing the hugeness of the story — and how few people know about it. I am hitting 500, 600 people, maybe 1,000 people at a time when I’m out speak and doing TV appearances — Charlie Rose and others — but those audiences are dwarfed by the kind that will see a feature film.”

Edsel, of course, will continue doing what he does — raising money for the foundation while continuing to track down those stolen treasures. And he’s finishing yet another book: Saving Italy, one more tome that renders history into adventure. It’s due in May of next year. But Edsel is well aware: It’s the movie that matters to most.

“It’s the mother of all game-changers,” he says. “What it does is bring visibility. So many times we hear from people, ‘We never knew anyone was looking for this,’ or, ‘We never knew there was stuff stolen.’ We hear this from veterans. Or they know about something and say, ‘We didn’t want to call.’ This is going to be the giant gong to let people all over the world realize this is a chapter of World War II that’s yet to be written, and we have a front-row seat to not just watch it be written but to help us write it and right these wrongs and help these things that have gone missing or were stolen get back to the people they belong to and help us identify some of the Monument Men we haven’t been able to find.

“We’ve talked about preserving the legacy, but this isn’t just a look back. It’s a look forward. I hope to affect public policy too, to get President Obama or his successor or stand up and restate what President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower said: We will protect cultural treasures as much as war allows.”

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Post by party animal - not! Wed 06 Jun 2012, 23:31

Well, the weight of responsibilty must be resting on the shoulders of the lads to get this right, then.

Stupendous but largely unknown true story, covering several countries in Europe and the US - and some awe-inspiring characters.

No pressure........

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Post by macs Thu 07 Jun 2012, 08:02

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George Clooney and Grant Heslov bookend Robert Edsel, whose book The Monuments Men Clooney will turn into a feature film(Courtesy Robert Edsel)
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Post by Katiedot Thu 07 Jun 2012, 10:18

Yep, there is some serious pressure on them to get this right.
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Post by blubelle Thu 07 Jun 2012, 15:42

If anyone can get it right-he can. It sounds like his type of story.
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Post by Cinderella Sat 09 Jun 2012, 13:14

I hope he's working on the screenplay... I noticed that IOM was really good in the beginning but the end, kind of fizzled. I say this with the utmost sincerity. Sorry George, constructive criticism is good for everyone... Me included! Laughing I wouldn't mention it if I didn't care...
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Post by Joanna Sat 16 Jun 2012, 19:14

IOM was based on a play wasn't it ?
Maybe that's how it could only finish.
I'll have to watch it again soon as I can't remember it all now.
CRS again....

I'm really looking forward to this new one.
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Post by melbert Sat 16 Jun 2012, 21:57

Yes Joanna. It was Farragut North (or something like that). I think that's a street or location in Washington DC.
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Post by Cinderella Sat 16 Jun 2012, 22:02

Yes, you're right Melbert... Farragut North is a Metro station in Washington, D.C.
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Post by silly girl Tue 19 Mar 2013, 13:00

Looks like Robert Edsel is doing a reading and signing tomorrow night. Wonder if GC would go?


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Post by silly girl Mon 01 Apr 2013, 21:04

Robert Edsel just tweeted this promo for his new book: Saving Italy. GC and The Monuments Men film are mentioned.


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Post by Joanna Mon 01 Apr 2013, 21:35

Thanks SG.....very interesting....lots more videos about MM's
real story there at the link too.
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Post by it's me Mon 01 Apr 2013, 21:36

thanks for the vid!
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Post by Mazy Tue 02 Apr 2013, 00:27

Thanks so much SG for all the info
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Post by OofOof Tue 02 Apr 2013, 03:30

Thanks a bunch Silly Girl! As usual, you're amazing.
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Post by amaretti Tue 02 Apr 2013, 03:33

Thanks Silly Girl . Very Happy

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Post by silly girl Thu 09 May 2013, 00:27

There is a big push to return the stolen artwork. Rose Valland aka Cate Blanchett is mentioned in the article:

In France, A Renewed Push To Return Art Looted By Nazis

During World War II, the Nazis plundered tens of thousands of works of art from the private collections of European Jews, many living in France. About 75 percent of the artwork that came back to France from Germany at the end of the war has been returned to their rightful owners.

But there are still approximately 2,000 art objects that remain unclaimed. The French government has now begun one of its most extensive efforts ever to find the heirs and return the art.

French law states that at art pillaged during World War II must be publicly exhibited, if its condition permits, so that it can be recognized and claimed.

"Up until now, France put the maximum information at public disposal and waited for reaction. For people to come forward. Now we're proactively tracking down the descendants and families of those who had their art stolen," says Thierry Bajou, who is coordinating the French government's efforts.

A team of government historians, regulators, archivists and curators is working full time, searching for missing art as well as heirs. Catalogs of art auctions before and after the war are being combed for possible looted art now on the market.

Decades Of Work

This is the latest effort in a process that dates back to the war itself. At that time, a French curator, Rose Valland, kept secret notes on everything the Nazis stole, and this helped return art to its owners after the war.

Any sale that took place during the war and Nazi occupation of France is null and void. That means all subsequent sales are invalid. Bajou says it gets complicated when a piece of art is located and the current owner, who is perhaps five or six times removed from and unaware of the original theft, believes he legally owns the piece.

Bajou brings up the Culture Ministry's website for looted art. The Jeu de Paume museum in Paris was the clearinghouse for all the art the Nazis collected around Europe.

A photo taken by the Germans in 1942 shows a room crammed with paintings. Using special software technology, the full, frontal view of a painting can be seen, even if only a side sliver of the work is visible in the photo.

"You see, now you can even read the signature on this one," says Bajou. "It's signed 'Picasso.' "

A Recent Success

Bajou says it was easy for big collectors to get back their works after the war; everything was well-documented.

"What's complicated is if you were just a normal guy and had maybe one valuable artwork that was in your family," says Bajou. "It's difficult to link the work of the person because most times during the war the families lost all their records and any photos or insurance claims — any proof that the art was theirs." The government's activism has already produced results. In a ceremony at the French Culture Ministry in March, six paintings were returned to 82-year-old Tom Selldorff of Boston.

Selldorff was just 6 when he saw his grandfather's prized art collection for the last time in Vienna in the 1930s.

"I only wish my grandfather were here to be able to be part of all this. But I'm sure he's watching from somewhere upstairs. So that's fine. Thank you very much," said Selldorff.

Selldorff's grandfather, Jewish industrialist Richard Neumann, fled to France in 1938. But he was soon forced to flee again, selling off his collection for a song. He made it to Cuba, alive but penniless. Records show his paintings were destined for a German version of the Louvre that Hitler planned in the Austrian town of Linz.

Database Allows Search For Artifacts Stolen During WWII
Maria Altmann, Who Sought Nazi-Looted Art, Dies
French Senator Corinne Bouchoux, a major force behind the new initiative, calls it France's moral duty for France to find the rightful owners of the art.

"This problem was sort of left in the freezer of history after 1950," she says. "It was the conjunction of two events that revived it: the fall of the Berlin Wall, which gave us access to the Soviet archives, and the Internet. Before the Internet, if you lived in Brazil and your family had missing works, you couldn't search the French collections of stolen art. Now you can."

But even with the Internet, it's still difficult, says Bajou.

He points to three paintings on the website by artist Fedor Lowenstein. They were considered "degenerate art," and Nazi records showed they had been destroyed. So no one ever looked for them, says Bajou.

He then saw them in the digitized Nazi photo of the looted paintings. Later he discovered the actual works in storage at the Pompidou Center. Now the French government is trying to return the paintings.

Lowenstein had no children, says Bajou, but he may have had a sibling, who may have had a child.

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Post by Joanna Thu 09 May 2013, 00:34

It's a major problem isn't it ? I wonder in the film will help give more publicity and impetus to the task of sorting it all out ?

I remember being shown large areas of over grown derelict land in Berlin that was originally owned by Jewish people and of course, there was no way of knowing who had the legal ownership of it.
I gave me a very sad feeling at the time.
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Post by it's me Thu 09 May 2013, 06:31

Yes
Really sad
Maybe something will change
Bec of this movie
(Hollywood movie)
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Post by silly girl Sun 09 Jun 2013, 23:51

Watching this now:


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Post by it's me Mon 10 Jun 2013, 00:09

Make us know, thanks!
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Post by silly girl Mon 10 Jun 2013, 00:31

He is very sweet and truly passionate about this subject. When he talked about the death of the main monuments men in the book and he got choked up....made me tear up too....

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Post by silly girl Mon 10 Jun 2013, 23:44

I couldn't figure out how to just send the clip. He mentions the film near the 58 minute mark. It isn't embeddable....



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Post by it's me Mon 10 Jun 2013, 23:57

Thank you!!!!
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Post by silly girl Fri 16 Aug 2013, 18:09

This article talks about one of the last surviving MM and it's a "woman"....really interesting..

Anne Olivier Bell: The last of the 'Monuments Men'
After the second world war, a team of art experts tried to rescue the thousands of artworks stolen by the Nazis. Now Anne Olivier Bell, the last of the 'Monuments Men', is to be the subject of a George Clooney film

This summer Anne Olivier Bell turned 97. Her name may not mean much to readers, except for those who are familiar with the five volumes of Virginia Woolf's diary, which she edited with meticulous thoroughness, or those who attend the annual Charleston literary festival, where she sits in the front row, making sotto voce comments on the quality of the talks.

Her work on the diaries took 25 years – transcribing, writing footnotes and fact checking in the London Library – and she was awarded honorary degrees by both York and Sussex Universities. But I most admire, and want to celebrate, the fact that she is the last surviving member of the so-called Monuments Men, who were responsible for the protection of historic buildings and for the return of the huge number of works of art that had been seized by the Nazis in the early stages of the second world war.

When we visit Europe's museums nowadays, I don't think many of us are aware of the devastation that was wrought on museums, galleries, churches, castles and private collections of art during the second world war. The Nazis moved through Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, France and Italy, commandeering works from their owners to enrich the private collections of art-loving military leaders such as Hermann Goering, and to form the collection of the great museum that Hitler planned to establish in his birthplace of Linz.

Ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal has described how his family's possessions were stripped from their palace in Vienna in 1938, but this was only the beginning of at least two years of systematic seizure of property or semi-compulsory purchase instigated by Hans Posse, Hitler's adviser in establishing his museum. In Poland, the three great paintings from the Czartoryski collection were seized, including Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, which has only recently been located in a bank vault, and Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, so much admired in the National Gallery's recent Leonardo exhibition, which was taken from Krakow to Berlin by Kajetan Mühlmann, whom Goering had appointed as special commissioner for the protection of works of art in the occupied territories. The Ghent altarpiece was removed in 1942 and stored in Altaussee in Austria. In France, between April 1941 and July 1944, 4,174 cases of works of art were shipped to Germany, full to overflowing with paintings and furniture that had been removed from private collections. It has been estimated that over five million works of art were taken from their owners.

As it became clear that America was likely to join the war, American art historians and museum directors established committees, including the American Defense Harvard Group, to lobby government to ensure that works of art and historic buildings received as much protection as possible in the event of an invasion. "Frick maps" were prepared, based on research in New York's Frick Art reference library, showing the location of the most important works of art, experts were consulted, and a handbook was prepared by George Stout, head of conservation at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. Thus was born the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments and War Areas, commonly called the Roberts Commission. This in turn led to the establishment of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the allied armies – the Monuments Men, who accompanied troops into Sicily and up through Italy, trying to ensure that the greatest works of art and buildings were protected from bombing and were, so far as possible, returned to the care of their owners or the appropriate local authorities.

The British were initially sceptical of this idea. When first approached to support the effort to appoint art historians to accompany the military, Kenneth Clark wrote to WG Constable, the British curator of paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, that he could not believe "that any machinery could be set up which would carry out the suggestions contained in your petition eg, even supposing it were possible for an archaeologist to accompany each invading force, I cannot help feeling that he would have great difficulty in restraining a commanding officer from shelling an important military objective simply because it contained some fine historical monuments". But, in November 1943, the archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley was appointed adviser to the War Office. As Lynn Nicholas comments in her book, The Rape of Europa (1994), "The evolution of this post took some years, and was in the best British tradition of muddling through."

As the war drew to a close, and allied forces began to discover vast collections of works of art stored in castles, monasteries and salt mines across Germany, it became clear that attempting to return these treasures to their rightful owners was a task of unimaginable proportions. Woolley needed knowledgeable recruits to help carry it out. In November 1945, Anne Popham, as Anne Olivier Bell then was (her fiancé, the South African painter Graham Bell, had been killed in a training flight in Northamptonshire in 1943 and she only married the art historian, Quentin Bell, unrelated to Graham, in 1952), was approached by "a foppish young man" at a party and asked if she would be interested in working for the Museums, Fine Arts and Archives branch of the allies' control commission. She recalls, "I was concerned about all the bombing and the destruction and the horror and the moving about of pictures and so forth. And I knew I had something of use and value to offer." She was given the civilian rank of major, serving under Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Webb, the Slade professor at Cambridge and great expert on Vanbrugh.

The daughter of AE Popham, the then recently appointed keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum, who had spent the war years in Aberystwyth cataloguing drawings from the Royal Collection, Bell was well qualified for the work. Educated at St Paul's School for Girls, she had been one of the first students of the Courtauld Institute, where she attended lectures by Anthony Blunt and worked in its Conway Library. She was based at Bünde in Westphalia, and was responsible for the task of co-ordinating the work of other officers in the British zone. One evening Bell brought Franz Wolff-Metternich, the provincial curator of historic monuments for the Rhine and a professor at Bonn University, to dine at her officers' mess. He had been invited to discuss how best to return works of art to museums. Her fellow officers refused to eat with him. Bell recognised that the Germans were human when they did not.

The co-ordinating work may have been sometimes dull, but it was absolutely necessary. Bell underplays its significance, as did the other people involved. This may have reflected the low esteem in which the work of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section was held by the military, who were wary of civilian involvement in the task of postwar reconstruction. But this should not lead us to underestimate its importance nearly 70 years later.

The British side of this story has never been properly told, although in the last two decades attempts have once again been made to try to establish the location of lost works of art. Neither Bell's work nor the work of her colleagues has been acknowledged by the British government – perhaps there is a sense of embarrassment that the efforts made to preserve historic buildings and works of art were feeble in light of the extraordinary levels of destruction allied bombers brought to German cities. But in recent years the US has begun to recognise the work of the Monuments Men. Robert Edsel, a businessman based in Texas, set up the Monuments Men Foundation, and in 2007 arranged for Bell to be presented by the American ambassador in London with a citation signed by Eisenhower's daughter and a copy of the flag flown over the US Capitol. In December, the Monuments Men will be the subject of a feature film starring George Clooney as George Stout and Cate Blanchett as Rose Valland, a member of the French resistance who tracked down thousands of stolen works of art.

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Post by Joanna Fri 16 Aug 2013, 20:43

Thanks SG.....a very enlightening article.
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Post by Nicky80 Fri 16 Aug 2013, 21:22

Thanks SG.

"Neither Bell's work nor the work of her colleagues has been acknowledged by the British government – ......"

Maybe after the movie and the attention it gets this will change
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Post by it's me Fri 16 Aug 2013, 22:11

"It has been estimated that over five million works of art were taken from their owners."


Gone to heaven 
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Post by it's me Fri 16 Aug 2013, 22:49

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The site!

Thanks to French fan site!
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Post by Nicky80 Fri 16 Aug 2013, 22:55

Thanks It's me.
 
Maybe I see it wrong but can it be that the trailer on that site is a bit different? Looks to me they add some new scenes in there. Or maybe I imagine that now. It is late.....
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Post by it's me Fri 16 Aug 2013, 23:14

No
the same to me

Anyway great idea to make ppl look at it again! Lol
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Post by Nicky80 Fri 16 Aug 2013, 23:17

harharhar yeah that was intention of course....
 
Well if you see it as the same than it is time for me to go to bed now before I start imagine more thinks hehe
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Post by it's me Fri 16 Aug 2013, 23:19

Yawn
Maybe me too.... Zzzzz 
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Post by silly girl Sat 22 Feb 2014, 14:33

Robert Edsel will be on BookTV on CSpan today...I think it is live:

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