Museum Security website statistics; over 1000 hits per week

December 22, 2000

CONTENTS:




- Re : Museum Sleepovers (Gary Yee)
- Re : Museum Sleepovers (Brian Appleford)
- Re : Museum Sleepovers (Elizabeth Hall)
- Art college wins fight for Tate site
- U.S. lists 2,000 artworks looted by Nazis
- Newfoundland government admits to losing art from permanent collection
- Man to be retried on receiving fossil
- The opinions of the National Library of Canada's director on the deplorable state of that institution's storage facilities
- Germany's hundred-million dollar art collection (Heinz Berggruen collection)
- Workshop on disaster planning, February 2001
- Poles attack Pope sculpture
- Rare gems stolen from museum
- NEWSBRIEFS ARCHAEOLOGY Online.
- The art of recovery
(At U.S. Customs, finding and retrieving stolen paintings takes an old master -- and sometimes an aesthetic connection with the thief)

From: Gary Yee gyee@famsf.org
Subject:

sleepovers

In San Francisco, the museum ship, Pampanito, which is a WW II Balao class submarine, allows for sleepovers. My nephew's Boy Scout troop just did it earlier this month. In perspective though, a WW II sub is different from an art museum and their security demands are different from ours.
Gary Yee
From: bapple@slsc.org
Subject:

Re : Museum Sleepovers

The St. Louis Science Center holds regular sleepovers (camp-ins). In addition to Steve Keller's suggestions I recommend a short safety orientation and an emergency evacuation drill for each camp- in.
The St. Louis Science Center website is http://www.slsc.org/
I will be pleased to assist any one needing more information.
Brian Appleford
Security Manager
St. Louis Science Center, 5050 Oakland Avenue,
St. Louis MO 63110
314-286-4657
bapple@slsc.org
Subject:

RE: info about museum sleepovers

From: "Elizabeth Hall" Elizabeth.Hall@gov.ab.ca
We have camp-in and edutour sleepovers at the RTMP.
All campers are accompanied by chaperones. Depending on the program, the ratio is either 5:1 or 8:1. ie For every 5 children, we require one adult. The group leader has signed an agreement that holds the group or school financially responsible for any damage, so adults do take an interest in basic security. Besides locking off certain areas of the Museum and having all exit doors alarmed, we have a security guard that makes regular walks (at least hourly) through the sleeping area. We also have a host that sleeps with the group all night. If there is a problem, we have 2 Museum personnel and a lot of chaperones that are immediately available. The chaperones are given a lot of info about rules & regulations before they arrive and upon arrival, the whole group gather in the auditorium to run through more rules. Our maximum total group size allowed is 100. All campers sleep in the same area, a large open area called dinosaur hall.
I hope this answers your question. If not, please feel free to email or call me.
Thanks
Liz Hall
Coordinator, Camp-Ins & Edutours
Royal Tyrrell Museum
phone 403-823-7707 ext 344
fax 403-823-7131

Art college wins fight for Tate site

by Robin Stringer
Chelsea College of Art has won its multi-million battle for the key Royal Army Medical College site on the Thames at Millbank next to Tate Britain.
The college was up against a bid from the Aga Khan Development Network which wanted to establish an Islamic cultural centre on the three-acre, Grade II-listed site. The decision in the college's favour for a price thought to be around £37 million means Chelsea, one of the world's leading colleges of art, can bring together its operations on one site. At present it is divided between four premises in west London. It was announced in Parliament today by Defence Minister Lewis Moonie after five months of deliberation. "We were faced with a difficult decision between the proposals," said Dr Moonie. "Both were very suitable for this heritage site and both offered wider public benefit. However, it was felt that accepting the Chelsea College bid represents a unique opportunity to co- locate a major arts educational institution alongside an art gallery of international standing." On behalf of the college, Michael Benson said: "This great success for us would not have been possible without the support of the Evening Standard and London's business, political and arts communities."
http://www.thisislondon.com/

U.S. lists 2,000 artworks looted by Nazis

By Joan Gralla
NEW YORK, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Justice Department researchers have put together a list of 2,000 artworks seized by the Nazis, a list that includes works by Rembrandt and Monet and that will help Holocaust families track down missing heirlooms. It was called a starting point by the World Jewish Congress, because no one knows how many of the paintings have been returned to their owners. The organization provided Reuters with an advance copy of the list, which will be released next week. U.S. museums, a handful of which have had to return artworks to Holocaust heirs from whose families they were stolen, could find the list an invaluable tool, according to Elan Steinberg, the congress's executive director. The museums have agreed with the Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States to carry out and disclose full research into the Holocaust-era provenance, or chain of ownership, of their works. They also promised to apply uniform standards to their research. Previously, the museums only agreed to research works with gaps in their history between 1933 and 1945, and it was up to each museum to define what sort of gap to reveal. ``They had not committed themselves to full disclosure nor to making all the information publicly available,'' Steinberg said. ``There have been no standardized rules about what to disclose and what constitutes a gap. The aim under the new agreement is to standardize the procedure and apply a uniform set of guidelines and standards.'' The quality of many of the paintings on the Justice Department list is extraordinarily high, because most of the items were stolen for Adolf Hitler and his Air Minister Hermann Goering, and they demanded masterpieces. Until now, museums have varied widely in the number of artworks they have categorized as possibly being among the estimated 600,000 stolen by the Nazis. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts listed on its Web site in April seven European paintings that it said it was concerned about. In contrast, the Art Institute of Chicago cited 548 works -- 109 sculptures and 439 paintings -- for which links in the chain of ownership were unclear or not yet fully documented. A gap in a work's provenance is only a sign that more research is needed, not proof it was stolen. The Justice Department researchers spent countless hours in the National Archives going over reports written by the Art Looting Investigation Unit of the Office of Strategic Services shortly after the world's bloodiest war ended. The OSS was the predecessor of the CIA.

Newfoundland government admits to losing art from permanent collection

SUZANNE WOOLRIDGE - The Arts Report - CBC Radio
A search of government departments has turned up 35 pieces of missing art. ST. JOHN'S - The Newfoundland government has admitted it lost track of more than $100,000 worth of publicly owned paintings and sculptures. More than a hundred pieces of art were reported missing in an annual report by Newfoundland's auditor general, Elizabeth Marshall. But the minister responsible for the collection, Sandra Kelly, says the art wasn't really lost. It just wasn't where it was supposed to be: "When people move from one office to the next they often take the art work with them and they don't report it to the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and that's exactly what we're finding has happened." Kelly says a thorough search of all government departments in the last few days has turned up 35 pieces of the missing art and more is expected to be recovered. Government officials discovered more works were actually destroyed in two separate fires in St. John's several years ago but were still on the books. Other art was found in cupboards. All of this shocks a provincial association called Visual Artists Newfoundland and Labrador. Sylvia Bendzsa is its executive director. Bendzsa says the auditor general's findings will help protect the government collection: "I think the auditor general pushed all the right buttons and I think it was needed, because it puts a system in place." The government says from now on, someone in every department will be responsible for the art.
http://infoculture.cbc.ca/

Man to be retried on receiving fossil

From AAP 21dec00
A MAN acquitted of receiving a stolen fossilised human footprint is to be retried.
Rodney Grant Illingworth, 31, had been acquitted in the West Australian Supreme Court earlier this year of receiving the 7,000- year-old footprint from a man convicted of its theft. But the Crown appealed against the verdict and the WA Court of Criminal Appeal today quashed the acquittal and ordered a retrial. Illingworth had been tried separately to 47-year-old Michael Latham, who is serving two years' jail for the theft of the human print and a 120 million-year-old dinosaur footprint at Broome in October 1996. At his trial, Illingworth, manager of the Roebuck Plains Station, pleaded not guilty to receiving the stolen human footprint from Latham. Broome police had told the court that a video had been found in a police raid on the property showing a person with painted toenails putting their foot inside the fossil. An ex-business associate of Illingworth, Gregory Travelstead, who once collected artefacts for Broome developer Lord Alistair McAlpine, told the court Illingworth had asked him if there was any interest in fossilised footprints. Mr Travelstead suggested he contact anthropologist Lindsay Hasluck, an anthropology lecturer at Deakin University. The court was told Mr Hasluck was interested in studying the footprint but could not afford to travel to Broome. Illingworth was acquitted of receiving the stolen human print after his defence argued the Crown had to prove he had "evil intent" with the artefact, such as an intent to sell it. But the WA Director of Public Prosecutions appealed, arguing before the Court of Criminal Appeal in June that someone was in breach of the law if they had possession of something knowing it was stolen and the Crown did not have to prove intent.
Australian News Network http://news.com.au:80/

The opinions of the National Library of Canada's director, in today's Globe & Mail, on the deplorable state of that institution's storage facilities:

The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, December 20, 2000

Standing on guard for Canadiana

By William Johnson
What price is worth paying for a collective memory? What's the cost of a collective loss of memory? Roch Carrier, one of Canada's foremost novelists, ponders these questions now, some 14 months after becoming Canada's national librarian. As head of the National Library of Canada, Mr. Carrier is official custodian of our national trove of books, records, prints, tapes, photographs, sheet music, videos, maps, memorabilia, newspapers -- from a poem printed in 1628 celebrating the exploits of privateer David Kirke who ravaged New France (he was to capture Quebec and take Champlain prisoner the following year) to two copies of every book that comes off the presses in Canada. "We have a beautiful collection," Mr. Carrier tells me in an interview. "We have treasures." The main building of the National Library rises on a choice site, right next to the Supreme Court of Canada on the street that houses the Parliament Buildings. The library has a collection of millions of items, an assemblage of high and low culture, the sacred and profane, the priceless and the merely curious. You can find there Glenn Gould's Steinway piano and specially made stool, a poster offering a $2,000 reward for capturing the assassin of Darcy McGee, a page from the Gutenberg Bible (circa 1455), the first 78 rpm record cut in 1945 by Oscar Peterson, a 1718 primer for studying Latin, a how-to guide for lovers from 1863 titled Guide des jeunes amoureux pour parler et écrire,and manuscripts from such writers as Susanna Moodie and Michael Ondaatje, Marie-Claire Blais and Gabrielle Roy, W. P. Kinsella and Carol Shields. But Mr. Carrier, a sparkling, athletic 63-year-old who loves to box as a hobby, is anything but jubilant when I meet him. He fears for the present and future safety of the patrimony that the National Library holds in trust. The collection has already far outgrown its premises and spilled over into other buildings. With the surge of publishing in Canada, the additions arrive at an accelerating rate -- currently 500,000 new items a year. The buildings are in such "deplorable" condition that much of the library's Canadiana is, he says, "at risk." "In the time since I took up this position, we have had eight 'accidents,' that is, flooding. In the past few years, there have been about 50 accidents." A former rector of the Royal Military College in Saint-Jean and a former director of the Canada Council, Mr. Carrier subscribes to Canada's need for nation-building. Ideally, he believes, the National Library should connect Canadians from every part of this vast country to the common collective memory accumulated in its stacks and vaults. And so his first order of priority was to set up a task force to carry out digitizing significant elements of the library's holdings so as to make them accessible by Internet to all Canadians. But, with its current budget, frozen for the past several years, and in its current facilities, the National Library cannot carry out its mandate, he maintains. "The budget for acquisitions is the smallest or second smallest of any research library in Canada." Most serious is the physical state of the facilities and their lack of atmospheric controls. The library is so overcrowded that stacks rise almost to the ceilings and lie right under the water pipes. The air does not circulate, and mould accumulates on the books. The Ottawa fire marshal denounced this situation five years ago as a fire hazard, but nothing is done because there is simply no place to put the books. Because of out-of-date plumbing, water recurrently backs up and pipes burst, damaging to date many thousands of books. Everyone lives in fear of the big one, a flooding that will destroy some of the library and the country's greatest treasures. It could be different, and Mr. Carrier lives in hope that the re-elected government will take seriously its debt to future generations. "Right now, in several parts of the world, states are building libraries that are, at the same time, statements of respect for the national culture. They make major investments to build the most beautiful dwelling for their books. In Denmark, the national library has become so popular that it is now the country's No. 1 tourist attraction." Jean Chrétien is said to be looking for a distinctive legacy, a special contribution for which the country will remember him with gratitude. I would suggest that he consider building a new National Library that is worthy, not only of Canada as it is now, but as it will be 50 and 100 years from now.
Who knows? The building might even bear his name.
wjohnson@globeandmail.ca

Germany's hundred-million dollar art collection

A former Jewish refugee of the Nazi era has sold one of the world's most valuable private art collections to Germany.
The former refugee, Heinz Berggruen, handed over the collection at a ceremony in Berlin attended by the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder. It has cost the Germany government a-hundred-and- twenty million dollars. It includes seventy-five works by Picasso, and others by Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne. Mr Berggruen, who is now eight-six, brought his collection to Berlin four years ago, after he returned to the city to live. He had left Germany during the Nazis' rise to power. The collection is currently on public display at Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

From: Robert James rmjames@gwmail.wake.tec.nc.us

Subject: Workshop on disaster planning

Disaster Planning for Public Libraries
North Carolina Museum of Art
2110 Blue Ridge Road
Raleigh, NC
February 7, 2001
9:30 AM - 3:30 PM
When disaster strikes will you be ready? Floods, fires, mold, vandalism and other catastrophes can and do strike at any time. Local history and genealogy collections may be irreplaceable. Core reference and general circulating titles are often out of print. Replacing damaged items will consume financial and human resources diverted from the acquisition of new material. Having a written disaster plan to limit and reduce the loss of collections is an accountable measure of responsible stewardship of cultural assets. Designed for personnel in public libraries, this workshop offers instruction and advise in crafting disaster preparedness plans and procedures.
Roger Loyd, NCPC Treasurer
Divinity School Library
Duke University
103 Gray Building
Box 90972
Durham, NC 27708-0972

Poles attack Pope sculpture

Wojciech Cejrowski, journalist
According to the official Polish news agency, PAP, the two men removed the meteorite from the tableau and tried to put the figure of the Pope into a standing position. The statue has provoked an extreme reaction in Poland not only because of the country's devout Catholicism, but also because the Pope is Polish. 'Profanation' Before the attack, a group of MPs had already called for the removal of the work, which they described as "a profanation of the sacred, given the special relations between Poles and the Holy Father." On Tuesday, well-known right-wing journalist Wojciech Cejrowski tried to cover the work with a sheet. After the latest attack, the museum's management stopped access to the exhibit and launched an inquiry into the damage incurred. The Cattelano sculpture raised eyebrows - but provoked no physical attacks - when it was put on show in London earlier this year.
BBC, UK

Rare gems stolen from museum

By LAURA KENDALL

BRAZEN thieves stole $30,000 worth of precious gems from the South Australian Museum yesterday, despite a recent security upgrade.

Two historically significant diamonds and a gold nugget were taken from a locked glass case just after 4pm, while more than 50 people were in the museum. The theft was discovered by a routine security patrol about 4.20pm in the minerals gallery on the third floor. Believing the offender might still be inside, police sealed the North Terrace building for more than an hour, searching all patrons. The diamonds were found at Echunga, in the Adelaide Hills, in 1860 and have been displayed at the museum since 1880. The first, a brilliant cut stone worth $15,000, weighs three carats and has a yellow tint. Worth $10,000, the second diamond is uncut, very clear in color and has a slightly frosted surface. The gold nugget, found at "Boolooroo" in the Flinders Ranges, is worth $4500. SA Museum general manager Steven Riley would not reveal what security measures were in place. The Advertiser understands that the cabinet which held the gems was jemmied open. "They were under secure cabinet storage. Our normal security was in place," Mr Riley said. "There are a number of security devices and (foot patrols) are one of them. "I would think we're talking in a time frame of five minutes (before the theft was discovered)." The museum reopened in March after a 12-month, $19.7 million redevelopment which included improvements to security. Minerals curator Alan Pring said the missing diamonds were of exceptional quality. "But the historical value is irreplaceable," he said. Visitor Natalie Bowler said she saw the empty case in the gallery just before she heard about the robbery. "We saw an empty case, but we thought it was part of a new exhibit," she said. John Emerson was in the Balaena Cafe on the ground floor as the main entrance to the museum was locked. "The first thing I noticed was one of the security officers came racing over in a great panic," he said. "We wanted to leave, but they wouldn't let us go (and) I was subjected to a search." Mr Riley urged gem dealers to be on the alert if offered diamonds for sale. Police have appealed for information from people who witnessed suspicious behavior on the third floor between 3.30pm and 4.05pm.
http://www.theadvertiser.com.au/

INDEX OF NEWSBRIEFS ARCHAEOLOGY Online.

Latest News; Check out the latest news from ARCHAEOLOGY Online. http://www.archaeology.org/curiss/newsbriefs/index.html

The art of recovery

At U.S. Customs, finding and retrieving stolen paintings takes an old master -- and sometimes an aesthetic connection with the thief.

By Rebecca Segall
Dec. 21, 2000 | It's not every day that you find an FBI agent savoring the smell of a carton of bright green marijuana leaves. Nor is it easy to imagine a DEA officer impressed by the audacity and precision of a smuggler who slit his own thigh open, inserted 300 ecstasy pills and sewed it up himself. With most crimes, law enforcement agents don't share an aesthetic passion for contraband with the perpetrators they're trying to collar. But in the world of art theft, such moments are commonplace. Take this month's seizure of the magnificent depiction of Christ by Venetian artist Jacopo de'Barbari -- a 16th century painting stolen from the Weimar Museum collection in Germany by American soldiers in 1945. "The suspect carefully described Christ's 'captivating' eyes in detail over the phone to me and I just couldn't wait to see it ... I couldn't stop reading everything ever written about the artist while I anticipated the seizure," says Joseph Webber, a special agent in charge at the U.S. Customs Service.
This slow-talking, cowboy boot-wearing, gun-carrying detective has been busting international criminals for 26 years. But as he begins to describe his role in recovering the Jacopo painting, his demeanor softens. "Have you seen the Jacopo painting?" he asks enthusiastically. "It is stunning. We made a copy and blew it up for our office." At 6-foot-4, Webber greets me with a big, gentle smile. As he meticulously repeats his main points in a slight drawl, he comes across more like a politician than a James Bond -- oozing the simplest charm while speaking of the most complicated and highly sensitive matters. "We're rural folk, my family," he says. "But I bring my toddlers to art and history museums every weekend. I love learning about art. I love figuring out puzzles, and art theft poses the greatest, most multileveled ones around." Webber handles all kinds of crimes, but has been one of the few at customs specializing in art theft cases over the last 10 years. He originally volunteered to work on those because he had fond memories of his college art history classes. In the wake of the recent Jacopo recovery, Webber is taking art theft investigation to a new level. Beginning last week, Webber convened a unit of six agents who will undergo special training to handle such cases. Art theft seizures demand an ability to recognize valuable art, verify the authenticity of a piece and properly preserve it, and the job requires a masterful grasp of international regulations and the ability to work with people of astounding wealth and expertise. As in the case of the Jacopo piece, there are possibly hundreds of masterpieces hanging illicitly in living rooms or churches across the country. "The first step is really raising awareness," Webber says. His unit has already launched the first "Most Wanted" list on the Customs Web site. Over the past few years, Webber has seized over $30 million worth of stolen art and artifacts -- in addition to making thousands of narcotics busts. At first glance, Frank Vaccaro, owner of Master of Furniture in Baldwin, N.Y., and the man arrested in the Jacopo case, doesn't come across as an aesthete either. And certainly not someone who could spot a classic Renaissance painting out of a pile of posters and tacky frames. But he did: In 1998, a school art teacher, Sister Rose Mary Phol, brought the Jacopo painting to Vaccaro to have the frame restored. He noticed that the structure of the frame was anachronistic. He carefully removed a family photo that the nun had glued on top of Christ's portrait and began to research the painting. He returned the frame to Phol without the portrait, telling her he had thrown it away. Meanwhile, Vaccaro had already contacted the Weimar Museum, determined that the painting had indeed been stolen in 1945 and proven in photos that he had it. He demanded a $100,000 finder's fee, and museum officials considered the request extortion. They called the U.S. Customs Service for help. Enter Joseph Webber and Special Agent Bonnie Goldblatt. Goldblatt went undercover as a Weimar representative and began to "negotiate" with Vaccaro. During recorded phone conversations, she obtained his address, a description of the painting and his demands. On Nov. 8, 1999, the agents had enough proof of ill intent, and obtained a search warrant. Agents found the small painting hidden in the ceiling of the furniture store. Vaccaro was arrested on the spot.
At the time, the museum estimated the painting's value between $150,000 and $400,000. It was subsequently appraised at $5 million, and because Vaccaro's demand was low in comparison to the actual value of the painting, charges were dropped. "I am happy the painting is back in the museum. That's what I wanted all along," he says. He just wanted a finder's fee as well. And is that so wrong? After all, if it hadn't been for Vaccaro's astuteness, the portrait might never have been recovered at all. According to Chicago-based art theft attorney Thaddeus J. Stauber, while stolen property in general should be returned with or without reward, there is an even greater responsibility to return stolen art unconditionally. "Every piece of art is unique, there is only one, created in time. In that sense, art is irreplaceable. And therefore, there is a higher ethical demand to get it to its owner."
The good news is that "The Bust of Christ" did finally go back to Germany last week, just in time for Christmas -- and in immaculate condition. Of its mysterious half-century journey, investigators have only been able to piece together the following: In 1972, Msg. Thomas Campbell, pastor of the now-defunct St. John's Moda Christi RC Parish in Queens, N.Y., gave the painting to the school art teacher, Sister Rose Mary Phol. Campbell, now 85, has told Customs investigators that he can't recall how he came to be in possession of the painting, but he guesses that a parishioner may have given it to him. Approximately 65 percent of all U.S. art imports arrive through the Port of New York, and in 2000 alone, the New York Office of Investigations seized $5.5 million in art fraud, accounting for 80 percent of Customs art seizures nationwide. The FBI is the other government agency that plays a leading role in recovering stolen art. Robert Speil, a private investigator who spent 20 years investigating art-related crimes for the FBI, says there are no cases more fascinating than art theft. "For all crime, you get to work with eccentrics on both sides of the game, but in art investigations in particular, the people are more complex," says Speil, who also was turned on to art by his college art history courses. "The art experts are different from those who specialize in fur, for example. Art specialists are professors. I prefer working with them." And the criminals are a unique bunch, too, he says. In one of Speil's favorite cases, a 35-year-old, drunk high school dropout shared Speil's fascination with this sort of refined, cerebral-minded crime. And the bond between the two men, at least according to the thief, was palpable. Charles Richmond, a serial art thief, would lure gay men into private quarters -- Richmond says he, himself, is heterosexual -- steal their wallets and run. But he wasn't after their money. He wanted their I.D.s. He would then go to art galleries, study their collections at the library and return to initiate a sophisticated and ongoing dialogue with gallery staff. After weeks of softening them up, he would ask a question so challenging that the good-natured gallery attendant would leave the room to look up the answer. That's when Richmond would grab a painting and run -- but certainly not hide. He would typically scurry right next door to a neighboring gallery, stopping only to take one deep breath, and then calmly walk in. After showing his stolen I.D., he would sell the piece for about 10 percent of its value. He would cash the checks using the same I.D. While Speil was searching for this quirky thief, Richmond was arrested twice for shoplifting. The first time, he had no fake I.D. with him so his real name was acquired and photographs and fingerprints were taken. The same week, he stole and sold a painting, posing as one of his gay victims, John Rogers. He was later busted for shoplifting again, and this time used Rogers' I.D. The FBI's computer system noted the matching fingerprints, and Speil now had a face and name to go with. It was just a matter of alerting all the galleries in New York to his identity. Within six months, an attendant at a gallery on Madison Avenue called Speil, informing him that Richmond had just left the gallery. The FBI's headquarters at that time were four blocks away, and Speil and three other armed agents ran up and down Madison Avenue for about 40 minutes until they saw Richmond walk out of a different gallery, stolen painting in tow. They arrested him on the spot and within half an hour Richmond was "beaming with pride," confessing everything. He sent Speil Christmas cards from jail. "He sees us as players in the same game," says Speil. "And he thinks we all -- him included -- did a great job." Richmond is out of prison and nowhere to be found this moment, according to Speil. "He began to think that the whole world, including the governor and I, were after him." When he got out of jail, Speil asked Richmond if he had any leads on any other illegal activity in the area, and apparently Richmond was alarmed by the line of questioning -- perhaps the insinuation was too artless for Richmond. Vaccaro seems to have emerged from his foray into art crime in better condition, if a little overwhelmed. No matter how he tries to lose himself in his furniture store's holiday hustle, he knows that if he had played his cards just a little differently, he could have become somewhat of a hero in the history of art, rather than a perpetrator.