Fire causes extensive damage to holocaust museum in El Paso
The Associated Press 10/1/01 11:47 PM
EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- Fire caused extensive damage Monday night to a holocaust museum. The El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center was closed at the time of the fire, and no injuries were reported. Former President Clinton is scheduled to appear Wednesday in El Paso at a fund-raising dinner for the museum, which is being held at a nearby location.
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
Museum Concerned About Stolen Art
The Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) - After disclosing that a donated painting was stolen by the Nazis, the Vizcaya Museum says it will post images on the Internet of other paintings from the same donor to find out if there are more plundered works. The museum said last week that a 500-year-old painting in its collection was stolen during World War II from Poland's National Museum in Warsaw. The ``The Holy Trinity, Seat of Mercy,'' is a small oil on wood painting by Nuremberg-born Georg Pencz. Concerned that other artworks given in the same 1980 gift might also be Nazi plunder, the Miami-Dade County-owned museum is putting images of the rest of the paintings on the Internet, said Richard Farwell, the museum's executive director. The collection of 26 paintings and nine sculptures was donated 21 years ago by the late Claire Mendel, who was the German consul in Miami from 1958 to 1970. It is mostly northern European Renaissance works painted between 1450 and 1650.
Little is known about who created many of them or who has owned them over the centuries, Falwell said. ``We have so little history on some of these things that I just have to think there will be more claims,'' Farwell said. Mendel, who died in 1987, probably had no idea any of the art he bought was stolen, according to his stepdaughter, Ann Sams. Farwell said he has begun the process of returning ``Holy Trinity, Seat of Mercy'' to Warsaw. The transfer must be approved by the Miami-Dade County Commission, which could take weeks or months.
A list of the paintings and sculptures given by Mendel will be posted on the American Association of Museums' Web site within a few weeks, and pictures should be online by the end of the year, Farwell said.
On the Net:
Vizcaya Museum: http://www.vizcayamuseum.org
American Association of Museums: http://www.aam-us.org
Brazil withholds exhibit from NY over attack fears
By Shasta Darlington
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian courts are withholding the centerpiece of the extensive ``Brazil: Body and Soul'' exhibition, scheduled to open at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, over fears of more attacks, organizers of the display said Monday. Two judges ruled that the 45-foot 18th century baroque altarpiece, which was to be the center of a sweeping display of Brazilian art beginning on Oct. 18, will not leave its native Olinda in northeastern Brazil.
full story: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011001/en/art-brazil_1.html
Church-icon thefts are demoralizing Guatemala's people
By T. Christian Miller
GUATEMALA CITY - The thieves scaled the white church walls with a ladder. They pried the rusty iron bars from a window, then dropped to the nave, just below the choir loft.
Working quickly, they slipped through the dark to the altar. They lifted a gilded glass bell jar, laid it carefully aside, then grasped their prize: a statue of the Virgin of Carmen, 15 inches high and covered with gold and silver. Within minutes, they had shinnied up a rope and out of the church. They sped away in a red pickup, police believe. They left a gaping hole, not only in the church but also in Guatemala itself. The Virgin of Carmen is no ordinary icon. A gift from St. Theresa of Avila to Guatemala about 400 years ago, it is both a symbol and protector of the nation. Millions of Guatemalans wear a small necklace with a picture of the Virgin over their hearts.
Now it was gone, stolen in the night like a TV set.
"It was like when someone dies," said the Rev. Bruno Renato Frison, the parish priest at the chapel that housed the icon for nearly four centuries. "There are some things that cause so much pain, they can't be expressed." Someone is stealing Guatemala's soul, bit by bit. Roman Catholic churches all over the country have been pillaged in recent years. Hundreds of colonial-era religious statues and paintings have vanished.
Nobody is sure who is behind the thefts. Some suggest an international ring of criminals who export the icons to satisfy interior-decorating tastes in Europe and the United States. Others point to a band of former military officials accused of human-rights violations, who may be intent on sending the Catholic Church a warning. This year, the pace of the thefts has soared. Five years ago, police recorded 39 thefts of religious artifacts in one year. Last year, 125 were reported missing. The rate this year is on track to surpass that mark, with a church reporting a burglary about every other day. Worse, perhaps, is the record of resolving such cases. Most of the icons are believed to have been shipped abroad to private collectors, never to be seen again. Of the 255 artifacts stolen in the last 21/2 years, authorities have recovered 29.
It is here that native artisans carved some of the finest examples of colonial-era art, and it is here that thousands of faithful pack the streets to watch the icons paraded through hamlets and cities during elaborate Easter Week celebrations. Guatemalans ask the icons to keep their children safe, their families healthy, their harvests bountiful. Church officials, for their part, believe the spate of thefts is linked to the recent, highly publicized trial of three military officials accused of killing Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi in 1998, just days after he released a human-rights report blaming the military and their allies for 90 percent of the 200,000 killings in Guatemala's long, savage civil war. Some of the most spectacular thefts - of the Virgin of Carmen in April and of the patron saint of Guatemala City last fall - happened right after or right before key decisions in the trial, which ended recently with the conviction of three top military officials and a parish priest who helped cover up the murder.
To others, the motive is simpler: greed.
Guatemalan art experts trace the beginning of the current wave of thefts to the 1976 earthquake that killed nearly 23,000 people. Many churches were damaged and destroyed, and destitute and homeless quake victims began stealing and selling the icons to survive. Government investigators face a mountain of difficulties in tackling the problem. First and foremost, the theft of icons is not a top priority in a country suffering a massive wave of killings, prison breaks and massacres. Second, although police have a department devoted to the theft of cultural artifacts, most of the focus is on the theft of pre-Columbian art, a more established smuggling phenomenon that commands much higher prices. Finally, there is no master list of the country's sacred icons. That means it's nearly impossible to return a stolen item on the rare occasion when one is recovered. http://inq.philly.com/