Nazis and Their Allies in Art Theft
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
One of the many French paintings hanging on the walls of the Pompidou
Center in Paris, this book recounts, is Fernand Leger's "Woman in Red and
Green," a Cubist composition painted in 1914 and viewed by millions of
people every year.
What few of those millions know is that the painting is one of 2,000 in
French museums that were stolen, confiscated or sold during the Nazi
occupation in World War II and then, though recovered after the war,
unclaimed by their owners.
In all, Feliciano reports in his meticulously researched account of the
wartime trade, there are 15,000 such looted and unclaimed works in France,
of which these 2,000, among the best, are supposedly on temporary display.
Feliciano's story is a sad one, a kind of illustration of the banality of
evil. Its main element is the systematic looting of art by the Nazis, most
of it from the collections of prominent French-Jewish families.
But an important part of the tale is the eagerness of many besides the
Nazis -- art dealers and private collectors in Germany, France, Switzerland
and elsewhere -- to benefit from the looting. These others helped the Nazis
find hidden treasures; they engaged in the buying, selling and trading of
stolen works and, when the war was over, they strove to keep portions of
the booty. The Leger painting, in Feliciano's telling, illustrates this
widespread venality, a kind of passive, postwar collaboration in German
wrongdoing.
The French government, which has always denied any effort to conceal the
provenance of the looted works, tried to defuse the issue recently by
identifying 987 of them and inviting claims by original owners or their
heirs. But Feliciano challenges the authorities' contention that they have
been unable to find the owners of the unclaimed paintings, including those
of "Woman in Red and Green."
Many of the works might, for example, have belonged to Jews deported to
their deaths during the war. But Feliciano, whose investigation taught him
the right places to look, was easily able to ascertain the legal ownership
of the Leger.
The painting was taken from the collection of the gallery owner Leonce
Rosenberg, who died in 1947. Rosenberg's wife and three daughters, the
painting's rightful owners, probably never managed to get their affairs
sufficiently in order, Feliciano writes, to become aware of all the works
missing from the Rosenberg collection.
"Whatever the case," he continues, "how could the curators of France's
museums not have ascertained these facts themselves after all these years?"
The author's answer to his own question: "The only reason can be the lack
of any will to learn who the owner was or why he never reclaimed the work."
Feliciano's remarkable job of research ought, all by itself, to spur the
French, the Swiss and others to greater efforts.
Privately accomplished feats of art sleuthing are only one of the services
that Feliciano, a writer who lives in Paris, performs in his important and
instructive book.
If there is a fault in his approach it is that he has uncovered so much
that it is sometimes difficult to keep the narrative straight in the
profusion of names and facts. But that is a cavil. Overall, his years of
interviews and documentary research, some in newly opened archives, have
produced a comprehensive picture of Nazi looting and its consequences.
Feliciano starts with a brief and telling summary of the Nazis' guiding
ambition, which was to assemble for Germany the greatest treasures of
European art as well as to enrich the personal collections of powerful Nazi
leaders, beginning with the former painter and self-proclaimed connoisseur
and critic Adolf Hitler.
Excluded from the ideologically pure Nazi collections were the moderns
(Matisse, Picasso, Leger himself), who were deemed in Nazi ideology to be
degenerate, though works by these artists were confiscated anyway and
traded for more "valuable" paintings, especially the highly prized Old
Masters of Northern Europe.
Hermann Goering, the reichsmarshal who was Germany's second most powerful
man in the Nazi years, ordered much of the looting that ensued, in part to
satisfy Hitler but also to satisfy Goering's own appetite for a world-class
collection. Feliciano describes the entire Nazi system of methodical
expropriation: searches and seizures, sales and exchanges, storage and
sorting in the Jeu de Paume in Paris as well as shipment by special train
to Germany.
The scope of this vast system is suggested by one remarkable statistic.
After the war, more than 61,000 works stolen from France were recovered,
including the 15,000 that remain unclaimed. The entire enterprise was
supervised by three German agencies that competed in grabbing treasures.
Feliciano provides brief and interesting histories of some of those whose
collections were looted, including the Rothschilds, the David-Weils, and
such major Jewish art dealers as the Rosenberg brothers, Paul and Leonce,
and Alexandre Bernheim and his sons. He then reports on the disturbing
eagerness with which German, French and Swiss art dealers took advantage of
the Nazi program.
The Swiss, criticized these days for providing a safe haven for the gold
and jewelry taken from the Jews, come off badly in Feliciano's account.
Swiss dealers aided the Nazi effort and profited from it. More important,
perhaps, after the war the Swiss government made very little effort to
return looted works to their rightful owners.
One celebrated collection, that of the Emil G. Buehrle Foundation,
Feliciano concludes, "contains paintings that were confiscated during the
war, paintings whose story is not fully told in its catalogues."
Then there are the French dealers -- still in business today, Feliciano
writes -- who made substantial and profitable deals with the German
occupiers, carefully cultivating important German clients, both public and
private, and conscientiously serving as consultants in the building of
German collections.
Feliciano's story is a sobering one of amoral, opportunistic greed, only a
small portion of which was ever punished and most of which, except for his
labors, was nearly forgotten.
PUBLICATION NOTES:
'THE LOST MUSEUM'
The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art
By Hector Feliciano
Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
The famous Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (BPH), in Amsterdam, faces a
critical threat to its existence that I wish to bring to your attention.
The BPH is the largest and best library in the world devoted to the
hermetic tradition, including both alchemy and related mystical and devotional
movements. It was founded and created by a private collector, J, R. Ritman, to
be a independent research library foundation. It is however now under the
control of the ING Bank, which is bringing to a final stage its plans to
disperse the BPH at auction. It has persisted in these plans despite efforts to
resolve the situation. The BPH is a designated Dutch national cultural
landmark, but this designation cannot finally inhibit the sale. I am informed
that the Dutch government has the option of purchasing the BPH within six
months.
The destruction of this unique library and the research institution built
around it, which has produced distinguish publications, would be a sad tragedy,
and it is entirely unnecessary. But to avoid it, it is necessary that as many
of as possible write in its support.
In addition, letters of support from the larger institutions of which most
of you are a part will be of the greatest help. Your efforts in organizing a
show of support will help to save the collections.
I also very much hope that my ABAA colleagues and our president Bob Fleck
will take action on this matter.
Please address your letters of support to Dr. Frans Janssen. For
information please contact me or
Dr. Frans Janssen
Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica
Bloemgracht 19
NL 1016 KB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31-20-6258079
Fax.: 31-20-6200973
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
'Vibration and dust from the building works could cause substantial damage to artworks'
Sunday 15 June 1997
Gallery weighs move to the old casino site
By GEOFF STRONG of the Sunday Age
THE National Gallery of Victoria is considering
creating a temporary exhibition space at the
old Crown casino site during the $160 million
redevelopment of the gallery due to begin in
January 1999.
The negotiations, which a Crown spokesman
described as ``very preliminary'', centre
around the Galleria space of the World Trade
Centre.
The gallery recently called for expression of
interest from other organisations interested in
renting space to the gallery.
The gallery's director, Dr Timothy Potts, was
reluctant to talk about the talks with Crown,
saying his preferred option would be to try to
keep part of the 30-year-old gallery building
open during the renovations, which are expected
to take up to three years.
Dr Potts said the old casino site was only one
of a number being considered by gallery
management. It is believed the World Congress
Centre and Dallas Brooks Hall are also being
considered.
When the redevelopment was announced in early
March by the Premier and Arts Minister, Mr Jeff
Kennett, the preferred option mooted was to
establish, on another site, a temporary gallery
for touring exhibitions and some of the main
artworks.
There was widespread criticism that Melbourne
would be without its art gallery for such a
long time.
Dr Potts said a technical report was being
prepared on whether part of the existing
gallery could stay open as an exhibition space.
The report is due in six weeks.
He said he hoped the study would show that the
gallery would be able to keep about a third of
its space open during the redevelopment, but
this raised serious conservation and security
problems.
Vibration and dust from the building works
could cause substantial damage to artworks if
they could not be isolated. Dr Potts said there
was a possibility the vibration problem could
be solved because of the modular design of the
building, but dust might be more difficult to
contain.
``There is also the problem of ensuring access
to the building site if part of the gallery
remains open,'' he said. ``It is also possible
that doing this will make the whole process
more expensive. In the long term it might be
cheaper to use another site, but finding one
suitable might be difficult because we have
very specific requirements, such as climate
control, security, lifts that can carry heavy
loads and suitable loading docks.''
Prominent Melbourne businessman Mr Ron Walker
is a director of the gallery and, through his
company Hudson Conway, one of the main
shareholders in Crown. Dr Potts said he would
expect Mr Walker to absent himself during any
board discussions on the matter. Mr Walker
yesterday declined to comment.
A Crown spokesman, Mr Gary O`Neill, said Crown
had always intended to rent out the old casino
site to recover some of its investment after
the new casino opened.
``It would be an ideal space to sublet to the
NGV,'' he said.
Crown spent $50 million setting up the
temporary casino, which is now empty after the
opening of the permanent casino last month.
Much of that money was spent on installing a
second floor in the Galleria space, plus items
such as catering facilities, air-conditioning
and security systems.
The ground floor space has already been leased
for the touring exhibition of Madame Tussaud's
wax figures, which its operators say will
probably remain installed for 12 to 18 months
after its opening in October.
©1997 David Syme & Co Ltd
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
Cemetery will be cited as one of the nation's 11 most endangered historic places
Resting in Pieces
D.C.'s Dilapidated Congressional Cemetery Is in a Fight for Its Life
By Mandy Stadtmiller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 1997
The Washington Post
Jim Oliver stands quietly in mourning. A very frustrated
mourning.
Not because he's surrounded by 32 1/2 acres of death,
almost two centuries old. Oliver likes all of that. He
treasures the story of each grave as he would an old
autograph or campaign button. No, the death is all right.
What gets him down is the decay.
Congressional Cemetery, "America's Cemetery," Washington's
first cemetery, at 1801 E St. SE, is rotting. Twenty blocks
from the U.S. Capitol, weeds thrash across rusted-open
family vaults, dirt envelops the statue of an angel who
weeps over a child's buried remains, and tombstones tip
uneasily. This is what happens when history is abandoned.
You may not have heard of Congressional Cemetery. It's no
Arlington. Still, it abounds with famous final restings:
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, "March King" John Philip
Sousa, Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. Here lies Belva
Lockwood, the first female candidate for president to
receive votes. Also here: David Herold, hanged for his role
in the Lincoln assassination, and James Crowhill Hall, the
doctor who cared for Lincoln in his final hours.
Seventy-eight members of the House of Representatives are
here, along with 19 senators. Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts, the only signer of the Declaration of
Independence buried in Washington, rests beneath a massive
headstone.
Oliver, who spends his days among the most powerful people
in Washington as a manager of the House Republican
cloakroom, spends his off hours as head of the private
association now responsible for the graves of the once
powerful.
Today his battle will get a scrap of recognition. The
cemetery will be cited as one of the nation's 11 most
endangered historic places by the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. Since 1988 the National Trust has
issued the "11 most endangered" list to bring attention to
historic sites at risk; this will be the first time a
cemetery has ever been included.
Congressional was chosen partly to highlight the plight of
historic graveyards all over the country that must fight
both natural decay and human depredations.
"It's not just the wrecking ball to buildings that is a
threat" to landmarks, said National Trust President Richard
Moe, who visited the site back on Valentine's Day. "I was
really struck by the vandalism and theft that has taken
place."
The cemetery was started in 1807 by Christ Episcopal
Church. In this century the church fought a long, losing
battle with vandalism and litter, and in 1978 turned the
operation of the place over to the private Association for
Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery. From 1982
to 1990, Congress provided $327,000 to help restore the
cemetery, but has not provided funding since.
Six months ago the cemetery association was so strapped it
let the last of its workers go. Now the grass is not being
cut. Restoration work has been suspended.
One of the most striking examples of destruction is the
statue of Marion Kahlert. Said to be the first traffic
fatality in Washington, Marion died when she was 10, struck
by a bread truck in 1904. A marble statue inside a glass
dome at her grave site showed the girl in Victorian dress.
In 1981 the statue was destroyed. Now her grave site has
only the tiny pair of marble shoes. The cost of restoration
is estimated at $10,000.
One of Oliver's first projects when he got interested in
preserving the cemetery eight years ago was indexing the
60,000 names at the site.
Lately his work has been a lot more basic. He now busies
himself with the day-to-day chores of garbage removal and
lawn care. He has even gone so far as to arrange burials.
The pin that he keeps on his desk at the cloakroom is a
little too literal lately, he said. "I dig Congressional
Cemetery," it reads.
But even when one task is completed, another problem always
seems to arise.
"Just when we thought things were on an even keel, then
bam, somebody bumps into the gate down there and we've got
another $10,000 project on our hands," Oliver said,
pointing to the toppled black iron fence and uprooted
concrete curbstone on the side of the cemetery. Even the
cemetery's lawn mower is currently indisposed due to a
malfunctioning fan belt.
Oliver walks along the weedy paths of the expanse, pointing
out details being washed away or hard to find among the
tangles of ivy and crab grass. One marble monument is
dedicated to 21 women who died in an explosion at an
arsenal they were guarding at what is now Fort McNair while
the men were off to war in 1864. Rain has caused the marble
to sugar, but the meaning is still visible.
"There's an hourglass with wings on it like your time has
run out," Oliver says. Wisdom about the nature of life
abounds at Congressional. Oliver pointed to the grave of
John H. Purviance, with a mini-Washington Monument on top.
He admired the brevity of the epitaph: "A clean record and
a good name."
Tobias Lear, George Washington's secretary, lies here with
a long lament written by his widow after he committed
suicide. Acid rain has rendered it unreadable. "City of
silence" is barely legible at the end.
Leonard Matlovich, a gay Vietnam veteran who died of AIDS
in 1988, had his tombstone specially inset with two pink
triangles and the message: "When I was in the military they
gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for
loving one."
Despite his intensive work at the cemetery, thoughts of his
own mortality rarely haunt Oliver, who turns 47 next month.
He guesses a plain flat marker would suit him best. Nothing
special. Just big enough so that it couldn't be lost in the
weeds.
@CAPTION: Congressional Cemetery, in Southeast Washington,
has been declared "endangered" by the National Trust.
@CAPTION: Jim Oliver, head of the Association for
Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery, at the
grave of J. Edgar Hoover. The cemetery has been named one
of the nation's most endangered historic sites.
© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
13/6/97
JUDITH H DOBRZYNSKI
Hong Kong's impending change from British to Chinese Communist rule has led
to an exodus of Chinese art. Residents have been sending their collections
overseas out of fear that China may prevent the export of items deemed to be
cultural patrimony.
Some dealers estimate the value of this precious cargo at more than
$1-billion, making it a migration of artworks that rivals the Japanese
purchases of Western paintings in the 1980s.
China will assume control of Hong Kong on July 1. In contrast to Hong Kong,
which has virtually no rules impeding the export of art and antiques, China
has regulations governing works of art more than 50 years old. Since
questions about future art export policies were first raised, China has
given only general assurances that Hong Kong's commercial laws will not
change in the next 50 years unless the territory itself changes them. Even
when pressed, officials will say nothing specific about art.
Many collectors, accustomed to trading on the free market, have been seeking
safe harbour for their Chinese ceramic, porcelain, bronze, jade, wood and
painted works. "I've been meeting a lot of insurance agents to appraise
items that will be shipped abroad," said Glenn Vessa of Honeychurch Antiques
in Hong Kong.
Art treasures have gone to the US, Canada, Britain, Singapore and elsewhere.
Some have been placed in museums, occasionally as gifts but usually on
long-term loan. Others have disappeared into warehouses or the second homes
that some Hong Kong residents have bought overseas as possible refuges. A
few have been put up for sale.
China's take-over of Hong Kong has also helped fuel the recent boom in
Chinese art. "The political events are certainly drawing an enormous amount
of attention to China and to Chinese art and culture," said James Godfrey,
director of Chinese art and Asian business development at Sotheby's, the
auction house. "And that," he said, "has helped generate excitement and
tension in the Asian art market."
Prices would climb higher still if China does limit exports from Hong Kong.
Artworks would become more scarce abroad and Hong Kong's vibrant art trade
would suffer as business shifted to dealers and auctioneers in Taiwan and,
especially, in New York City, which is already capturing an increasing share
of the Chinese art market.
Smuggling of art from the Chinese mainland, a chronic occurrence that is
unlikely to cease, is also expected to change. Despite the strict rules,
China thrives as the source for artworks new to the market. The border
authorities often look the other way as smugglers move them overland to Hong
Kong and then to markets around the world. Paradoxically, smuggling through
Hong Kong will probably be more difficult once it is part of China.
Art began trickling out of Hong Kong - legally, if surreptitiously - soon
after Britain agreed to withdraw, in 1984. Some Hong Kong residents
established dual citizenship, buying second homes abroad and furnishing them
with their art and antiques. But many more, wanting to enjoy their
possessions, procrastinated, thus setting up the last-minute scramble.
"Naturally, many put it off," said James J Lally, who owns an Asian art
gallery in Manhattan. "There's been more activity in the last year." No one
knows how much more, though. Collectors are silent on their activity, afraid
of attracting attention or disapproval of Chinese officials, whose vague
statements that nothing will change have not assuaged their anxiety.
"The Chinese authorities say this is an over-reaction, that the restrictions
apply only to China and not to Hong Kong," said Philip Ng, managing director
of Christie's Asia, based in Singapore. "But if you had millions of dollars
in antiques, you'd rather play it safe, wouldn't you?"
To some Hong Kong Chinese, there is no debate. Art collecting is a family
tradition and many remember the Communists' rise to power nearly 50 years
ago. "A lot of these families were in Shanghai in 1949 when the Chinese
Communists said: everything will be fine," Lally said. "And then the
Communist regime confiscated their art. The Shanghai museum's best pieces
are all from those private collections."
Times have changed on the mainland. Some economic freedoms have been
granted. But civil and political rights have not followed. "The question
is," said Constance Lowenthal, of the International Foundation for Art
Research, "will holders of great and important art be allowed to treat it as
personal property or not?" - New York Times
All Material © copyright Independent Newspapers 1997.
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
©1997 San Francisco Examiner
ART DIVIDES EMPORIUM HEIRS
Children suing stepmother to seize $800,000 painting
Emelyn Cruz Lat
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
He was born to privilege, heir to a department store
dynasty. She was a former jet-setting Hollywood wife and
fabled hostess.
During their 25 years together, Prentis Cobb Hale and Denise
Minnelli Hale threw lavish parties, attended soirees with
The City's rich and powerful, and donated generously to the
arts, one of their abiding passions.
Now a widow, Denise Hale is locked in a fierce courtroom
battle over an $800,000 Impressionist painting bought by
Prentis Hale nearly 40 years ago. Her foes are Hale's four
children from a previous marriage who claim the painting is
theirs.
She says she is fighting to preserve her husband's good
name. They say their father hoodwinked them out of something
he'd promised them.
The work of art - by vanguard French artist Berthe Morisot -
features an iridescent, shimmering summer view of two women
at the lake in the Bois de Boulogne. Prentis Hale bought it
in 1958 for just $15,000.
The children - Linda Hale Bucklin, Hamilton Hale, Hilary
Hale Spencer and Prentis Cobb Hale III - contend in a
lawsuit filed in March that the painting belongs to them
because their father used their trust money to buy it. Hale
left them nothing in his will.
Neither the Hale heirs nor their attorneys returned several
calls for comment.
Denise Hale said her husband - heir to Carter Hawley Hale
Stores Inc., which owned the Emporium, Weinstocks and the
Broadway - had used his own money to purchase the painting,
and that he had given it to her while he was alive.
Hale said she planned to leave it to The City in her will
"so that everyone can enjoy it."
"(The children) are saying their father stole $2,000 from
each of them in 1958 to buy the painting," Denise Hale said.
"This is completely ridiculous. He took care of his children
in the most generous fashion."
Lucrative trusts
She said that her husband had set each of his children up in
his lifetime with lucrative trusts. At least one, she said,
"has millions (in holdings from the father), and I don't
mean just two or three."
The lawsuit is simply a ploy "to extract more money from
their dead father," she said.
"My husband and I were never petty people," she said. "This
is about his reputation. He's not here to defend himself. I
have to preserve his good name from the claims of ungrateful
children."
But in court documents, Prentis Hale's children allege he
used funds belonging to them to buy at least two
Impressionist oil paintings - the one by Morisot titled "En
Bateau sur le Lac de Boulogne," and another by Alfred
Sisley, "La Seine a St. Memmes," purchased for $8,000.
Receipts for the artwork show the children as the owners,
their lawsuit alleges.
Prentis Hale kept both paintings in his possession after he
bought them, but told daughter Linda Bucklin that the
paintings would be turned over to his children at the time
of his death, the suit claims.
Prentis Hale sold the Sisley painting in 1978 for a net
price of $85,000, and the Morisot painting is now in Denise
Hale's possession, though it is on loan to the de Young
Museum.
The suit alleges that Hale breached his duty to his children
by leading them to believe they "would obtain possession of
the Morisot painting upon his death and by failing to
disclose that he had purchased the Sisley painting, and
possibly other paintings, with (their) money."
$1.2million suit
The lawsuit asks for about $1.2 million in damages, the cash
value of both paintings at the time of Prentis Hale's death
in February 1996. The suit also seeks punitive damages
against Denise Hale.
Jo Schuman, widow of Beach Blanket Babylon's creator Steve
Silver and close friend of the couple since the 1980s, said
Prentis and Denise Hale had been devoted to one another.
"She would walk into a room, and his eyes would light up,"
Schuman said. "Anything that was his was theirs. He really
wasn't that close to his children. I never saw his children
around him."
The couple met 27 years ago while Denise was still married
to film director Vincente Minnelli, father of Liza Minnelli.
Soon after she married Hale in 1971, the couple gradually
pulled away from the Hollywood social circuit. Their life
centered on their San Francisco home, their Sonoma ranch and
their dogs.
The couple gave handsome donations to museums and other
charities. Denise Hale on her own has contributed to
underwriting public TV programs, including the McNeil-Lehrer
show, Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" and the San
Francisco Symphony and Opera programs, and donated to the
nonprofit Delancey Street program in The City.
The Hales hosted book launchings with Ann Getty, Francis
Ford Coppola and Jerry Brown. They celebrated at Academy
Award parties with notables like Jimmy Stewart and Angie
Dickinson. They attended galas with Mayor Brown, former
Mayor Frank Jordan and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
"We had a very wonderful married life," Denise Hale said. "I
took care of my husband, and he took care of me. Now, my
husband's reputation is on the line."
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
ROME, June 11 /PRNewswire/ --
Bonni G. Tischler, Assistant Commissioner of
the U.S. Customs Service, today returned several irreplaceable manuscript
pages stolen from the Vatican Library to the curator of the library, Cardinal
Luigi Poggi.
Recovery of the folios, hand-painted by monks in the 13th century,
resulted from a Customs investigation of Anthony Melnikas, a former Ohio State
University professor convicted of stealing manuscript pages from the Vatican
and two libraries in Spain.
SOURCE U.S. Customs Service
CONTACT: Patricia Coss of the U.S. Customs Service, 202-927-7010
©1997 PR Newswire. All rights reserved.
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
Trying to Save the Neglected Side of Ellis Island
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
NEW YORK -- It was known as "the sad side" of Ellis Island.
Just south of the exactingly restored main immigration building,
beyond the ferry slip, a chain-link fence and a "Danger" sign,
lies a crumbling, abandoned hospital campus where immigrants too
sick to be allowed entry were sent to recover, or to die.
Decades after the last patient was treated, the sealed-off
cluster of 24 buildings is decaying into rubble, according to
preservationists in New York, New Jersey and Washington. It is the
lingering victim of official neglect, the tireless advance of
weeds, rust and rot, and the public's perception that the work of
restoring Ellis Island is already done, they say.
On Monday in Washington, the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, a leading advocacy group, is to place the south side
of Ellis Island on its annual list of the 11 "most endangered
historic places" in the United States.
At a joint news conference on the island, officers of the New
York Landmarks Conservancy, the Municipal Art Society and
Preservation New Jersey plan to call on Congress to finance
emergency repairs to the south side, which has gone largely
untouched for 43 years.
Uncharacteristically, the advocates of preservation are not
asking for the money to transform the hospital buildings into a
gleaming museum like the main hall, which opened to wide acclaim in
1990 after a $150 million reconstruction. A restoration on that
scale would cost about $200 million.
Instead, preservationists and the National Park Service now
propose to do only what is necessary to leave the structures as
"stabilized ruins." Ruins, in other words, like those of Greece
and Rome -- with pieces missing and cracks evident, and without the
cosmetic touch-ups Americans have come to expect in historic
renovations.
The repairs would be just enough to allow visitors to walk
through, and to reflect, in safety.
The notion is somewhat alien to the federal agency that operates
the island, said Richard Wells, the Park Service's chief of
professional services at Ellis Island. "We don't like to put
Band-Aids on buildings," he said. "We like to fix them so they're
usable."
This is not the first time the National Trust, a congressionally
chartered organization that is the United States' leading voice for
historic preservation, has recognized the hospital complex.
In 1992, when the Park Service wanted to let a developer
demolish 12 buildings to build a hotel or conference center,
preservationists protested and as a result the southern half of the
island was included on the Trust's "most endangered" list. When
the development plans failed, the campus was taken off the list.
In an interview, Peg Breen, president of the Landmarks
Conservancy, said that Congress, which authorizes all Park Service
capital projects, has ignored pleas for repair money for years.
"They're letting half of Ellis Island die," she said.
The plan to stabilize the hospital ruins, which was decided on
last year, was a reversal for the Park Service. And during a
walking tour of the property last week, Wells made it clear to Ms.
Breen and a few other guests that it will cost millions.
Tree-sized acanthus weeds sprout out of third-story brick walls
and gutters and soar up through air shafts. Ivy enshrouds whole
buildings in darkness. Roofs are caved in. Masonry has fallen off
walls and cornices in 40-pound chunks.
Stalactites of lime, leached out of the concrete by seeping
water, cling to the ceilings. Water has so permeated the buildings
that steel beams and joints have already rusted all the way
through, leaving the supports of whole buildings in doubt.
Officials and preservation groups estimate that the costs for
repairs will range from a bare $1.5 million to protect the
buildings against the elements, to $15 million or as much as $40
million to make them safe for visitors.
The buildings at risk include an autopsy amphitheater, where
medical students watched surgeons dissect the bodies of immigrants
who had died of diseases rarely seen in America.
There is a bed-sized, steam-heated autoclave, used to sterilize
mattresses; a laundry room complete with a centrifuge and a large
mangle, with fabric still caught in the rollers, where bedsheets
were once pressed; a 12-foot-high, coal-burning boiler; and a
500-foot corridor connecting the contagious-disease wards, invaded
by ivy, littered with falling plaster, and flooded at one end with
the light of New York Harbor.
These remains evoke the frustration and despair that
characterized the dark side of the immigration story, Wells said,
in a way that the exhibits in the restored main building cannot.
Here immigrants who were not immediately denied entry to the United
States, but were too sick to be admitted, spent days or even weeks
recovering in a kind of purgatory.
"Imagine being confined in a hospital bed with the Statue of
Liberty outside your window, and you still don't know that you're
going to get let in," he said.
Oral histories being collected at Ellis Island reveal poignant
memories of immigrants' hospital stays and tearful separations.
Anthony Meritai and his family spent three months here in 1910
after arriving from Lucca, Italy, for treatment of ailments as
minor as earaches and as serious as measles. His brother Joseph
contracted scarlet fever here, and stayed on the island when the
rest of the family left and entered the country.
Joseph later died on the island. "The bad part of all this was
that we don't know where he was buried," Meritai remembered
decades later.
The hospital complex also has a more uplifting story about the
design of medical centers and the treatment of communicable
diseases in the early part of this century. The U.S. Public Health
Service was founded there. And the cure for pink eye, which until
then invariably led to blindness, was discovered there, Wells said.
But after World War II, when some resident aliens were interned
here, the hospital grounds and buildings fell into disuse. And in
1954 the immigration station closed. Hardly any maintenance of the
south side of the island has occurred since then.
The concern for the fate of the southern half comes amid a
celebrated legal battle between New York and New Jersey for
possession of Ellis Island. A special master appointed by the U.S.
Supreme Court recommended in April that the border be redrawn
across the island's middle, giving New Jersey title to the southern
half.
Some New Jersey officials have even raised the idea of
commercial development again. But preservationists from both states
say they want to avoid the interstate battle and focus their
attention only on stabilizing the buildings.
Brendan Sexton, president of the Municipal Art Society of New
York City, said that such a modest goal "is an admission of too
little, too late -- of our culture's mishandling of the property
until now."
Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
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Wimbledon museum trophies up for sale
Perry widow puts Wimbledon museum trophies up for sale
BY MICHAEL HORSNELL
THE trophies won by Fred Perry, Britain's greatest tennis player, have been
withdrawn from the Wimbledon Museum by his widow and put up for auction in
an acrimonious dispute with the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
Bobby Perry, 78, plans to sell her husband's memorabilia, which had been on
loan to the museum for 20 years, at Christie's shortly before the start of
the Wimbledon championships. They are expected to raise £250,000.
Mrs Perry, the fourth wife of the tennis player, who died aged 85 in 1985,
said the move would "serve them right". She said: "I have no qualms about
the auction. I don't feel I owe them anything."
Valerie Warren, curator of the museum, which declined an offer to buy the
trophies and was said to have "had a fit" over their withdrawal, will
attend the auction on June 20.
Chris Gorringe, chief executive of the All England Club, said: "We shall be
very sorry if any of the items which have been on loan are lost. The museum
will attend the auction with a view to purchase."
Perry won three successive Wimbledons in 1934-36, three US titles, the
Australian and French, but felt snubbed when the club removed his
membership after he turned professional. His widow says she has to fight to
obtain Wimbledon tickets and that the trophies had been loaned only because
of the high cost of insurance and cleaning.
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Collection of Chinese art is being mysteriously broken up
The Sunday Times June 08 1997
Hong Kong art tycoon sells his Aladdin's cave
ONE of the world's most fabulous collections of Chinese art, the property
of T T Tsui, the shadowy Hong Kong millionaire, is being mysteriously
broken up and partly sold off just as his powerful friends in China take
over the colony, writes Michael Sheridan.
Estimates put the value of objects sold by Tsui through Christie's in Hong
Kong and New York in the past seven months at more than £10m.
Tsui rose from poverty to riches at amazing speed through property deals in
Hong Kong and privileged commercial links with the Chinese Communist party.
However, as a tycoon with a foot in two worlds, he also donated large sums
to the British Conservative party, endowed a gallery of oriental art at the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London and co-founded the prestigious China
Club in Hong Kong with the style guru David Tang.
Many Hong Kong connoisseurs are discreetly moving their collections abroad,
fearing strict Chinese laws on the export of antiques could be applied.
Although Tsui has also sent some of his artworks to Singapore, there is
speculation in the art world that he is selling off others to raise cash.
One antique dragon vase, bought in 1974 for £11,000, fetched more than
£500,000.
"T T does seem very preoccupied these days," said Tang, who predicted with
a shrug "a soft reign of Chinese terror" in Hong Kong from July 1. Tsui and
Tang were adept at playing both sides of the old Anglo-Chinese
establishment. Tang arranged for Tsui to meet John Major in 1991 to put the
seal on Tsui's donation to the former prime minister's campaign chest.
Western intelligence services have taken a close interest in Tsui's
business dealings with the Chinese government. In particular they focused
on his partnership, now apparently dissolved, with Norinco, a conglomerate
controlled by China's state council. Norinco has sold weapons to Iran and
other states in the Middle East. Tsui has always denied any connection to
arms dealing.
He is doing his best to keep in with the Chinese establishment, but as the
new Chinese ruling class redraws the old maps of power and wealth, some
people speculate that Tsui may be one of the losers.
His tasteful Museum of Art in the building that houses the Bank of China,
the state-owned institution, will have to shut down at the end of the year
because the bank wants the space for offices.
Tsui is one of the most secretive of the notoriously reticent Hong Kong
super-rich. He was born in 1940 to a family of Kuomintang nationalist
sympathisers who fled to Hong Kong in 1950. His father lost his money and
died of tuberculosis, leaving Tsui to work his way up from selling won ton
noodles. By the 1970s he was a millionaire and deep in dealings with China,
turning himself into an art collector and philanthropist.
There are many mysteries about Tsui, but there is no secret about his
fascination for imperial power. On his 40th birthday he drank wine from a
porcelain cup used by the Emperor Qian-long, bought the day before for more
than £620,000. On his 50th birthday he drank wine from a stem cup used by
the Emperor Yongzheng at the same age. At 60, Tsui intends to eat
traditional long-life noodles from a bowl from which the Emperor Kanxi
supped. There will have to be a real crisis for Tsui before the prized bowl
is sent for auction.
Additional reporting: Francis Yuen
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Bremerton to Lose USS Missouri as a museum
Navy Secretary Sinks Efforts to Keep Battleship, Bremerton to Lose Uss Missouri
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Wed, Jun 11 1997
Secretary of the Navy John Dalton yesterday dashed the hopes of Bremerton
and Kitsap County to keep the retired battleship USS Missouri as a
historical museum on the downtown Bremerton waterfront.
It now appears inevitable that the 58,000-ton battleship, a major tourist
attraction in Bremerton for more than three decades, will be towed next
year to a permanent moorage on "battleship row" in Pearl Harbor, said Earl
Smith, chairman of the Bremerton-based Save the Missouri Committee.
"We don't have a legal leg to stand on," Smith said when asked if his
committee might consider a lawsuit against the Navy. "They can donate it to
anyone they want to."
Dalton declined a request by Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., to reopen the
selection process for a permanent berthing site for the famed World War II
battleship. It was the site for Japan's formal surrender to the Western
allies on Sept. 2, 1945.
Dicks sought an investigation by the congressional General Accounting
Office into the Navy's decision last Aug. 21 to give the decommissioned
ship to the USS Missouri Memorial Association in Hawaii.
Smith and other local critics of that decision charged that the Navy
altered its selection criteria at the last moment to tilt the results to
the Hawaiian group.
Mothballed in Puget Sound Naval Shipyard from 1954 to 1983, the Missouri
drew an average of 180,000 visitors a year.
After five years of active service from 1986 to 1991 including combat in
Operation Desert Storm, the Missouri was stricken from the naval warship
registry in 1991, prompting local civic officials to plan a new $6 million
waterfront site near the Washington State Ferry Terminal for a permanent
memorial.
Groups from Pearl Harbor, Long Beach and San Francisco competed with
Bremerton to receive the ship as a donation for a naval museum. Under the
Navy process, each application was assigned a numerical score based on
criteria such as adequate funding, a suitable moorage site, environmental
considerations and continuous maintenance and security plans.
The Navy last summer added two criteria - "public affairs value" and
"historical significance" of each site - but did not inform the four
contending groups that those two new criteria constituted 75 percent of the
final grade for the decision, Dicks said in a June 3 letter to Dalton.
Bonnie McDade, a member of the Save the Missouri Committee, said Bremerton
had the leading score before the last-minute change. But when the final
scores were tabulated, Pearl Harbor edged Bremerton by 8.8 to 8.7 on a
scale of 10.
Dicks said this and other "serious flaws" justified reopening the contest
and assigning the final disposal decision to an independent panel.
Dalton responded to Dicks yesterday, saying the GAO review "contains
nothing that would warrant reopening the process."
"I remain confident that my selection of Pearl Harbor was in the best
interest of the Navy and our nation, based on the impartial review of the
relative merits of the four acceptable applications," Dalton wrote.
After conferring with congressional leaders yesterday about the possibility
of a legislative reversal of Dalton's decision, Dicks threw in the towel.
"I have been informed by the chairman of the House National Security
Committee that there is not sufficient support in Congress for overturning
this decision, and at this point it appears that no further action on the
matter is possible," Dicks said.
(Copyright 1997)
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Activists seek to save 19th-century houses
Activists seek to save 19th-century houses; Preservationists say homes were built for Irish railroad workers
The Baltimore Sun Wed, Jun 11 1997
Hollins Market-area community activists are asking the city for a 30-day
postponement of plans to raze five crumbling alley houses to give them a
chance to develop a plan to save them.
Some preservationists and others have called for the restoration of the
red-brick houses in the 900 block of Lemmon St., saying they were part of a
patch of dwellings built for Irish immigrant railroad workers before the
Civil War.
The houses, they say, are testimony to the Irish labor that helped build
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, making Baltimore a major player in the
nation's development.
"These are historically significant houses," said Mary Ellen Hayward, a
preservationist charged with documenting Baltimore's 3,000 to 6,000 alley
houses before they are lost to history. Many alley houses are among the
1,000 abandoned and neglected houses to be razed by the city this year.
City Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III said he would be willing to
talk to people interested in saving the houses. However, he noted that
Southwest Visions Inc., a neighborhood-based, nonprofit developer, had
requested the demolition because of safety concerns.
Henson said demolition is to take place this summer, but no date has been set.
*Vacant and abandoned*
For years, the privately owned houses have sat vacant and abandoned, their
back walls bowed or collapsed, some interiors exposed to the elements.
Drug addicts shoot up and children play there, say disgusted neighbors who
want the buildings demolished immediately.
"We can't get rid of the mice in our houses because they keep coming from
that filth over there," said neighbor Betty Hickson.
In the 1980s, federal money was allocated to repair some of the homes, but
that money apparently was switched to other projects, said Micha
Dannenberg, vice president of Hollins Market Neighborhood Association,
which voted for the 30-day postponement Monday night and is seeking
funding to help save the houses.
The houses are located in the Roundhouse neighborhood.
*Contributing to preservation*
Thomas Ward, a retired Baltimore Circuit Court judge who owns a rental
property in the block, says he has long lamented the deterioration of the
residences and is interested in contributing to their preservation.
"You have the world's oldest passenger railroad station {the circa 1830
Mount Clare Station} still standing there Then you have the places where
the laborers lived. This has historic value for the world," Ward said.
Mount Clare Station was transformed into the B&O Railroad Museum in the 1950s.
*Steps from railroad museum*
The Irish workers' houses are at 912-920 Lemmon St., steps from the B&O
Railroad Museum. Hayward envisions at least a couple of the houses being
renovated into tourist attractions, their backs covered in Lexan, a
heavy-duty clear plastic that would allow visitors to see inside but would
not be costly to maintain.
John H. Ott, executive director of the B&O museum, said, "I'm of a mixed
mind on this. It's important to save houses worthy of saving, but when a
house is left to deteriorate beyond a certain point, when does the cost of
saving something like that ever repay for itself?"
>From outside the 1840s-era houses this week, Hayward pointed to such period
features as pine floors, full basements and plaster with horse hair mixed
in.
"There are other examples of this type of architecture, but many of them
have been gutted inside," she said. "These have so much of the original
fabric left that we can really see how these people lived."
Pub Date: 6/11/97
(Copyright 1997 @ The Baltimore Sun Company)
copyright SECURMA The Netherlands
Veterans battle for WAC Museum on history of women's role in Army
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sun, Jun 08 1997
FORT McCLELLAN, Ala. - The Women's Army Corps is at war again, this time
against the Army itself. Disbanded 19 years ago to end gender separation in
the service, the corps is reuniting to save the only museum that chronicles
the evolution of women's role in the Army.
"They're going to bury our history," said Karen Chambliss, who retired from
the Army Reserve in 1994 after a 33-year career that began at Fort
McClellan, where she did basic training as a member of the WAC Training
Battalion.
More than emotion is at stake. WAC veterans and supporters collected
$500,000 in private contributions in the early 1970s to pay for the
building the museum occupies now. They also donated the more than 5,000
artifacts in the museum that distinctively illustrate the history of
American women in uniform.
"We built this ourselves, from the first stone to the last," said Mary
Clarke, who as a brigadier general was the last director of the Women's
Army Corps.
The Army, however, is the legal owner.
The Army is shuttering the 12,000-square-foot museum, the only one in the
country devoted entirely to the history of women in the American military,
because it is abandoning McClellan, whose military police and chemical
defense training centers are to be moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in
September 1999.
Army officials insist that they will not let the WAC Museum die. They
intend to recreate it at an active Army base, possibly Fort Leonard Wood,
home of Army combat engineer training, or Fort Lee, Va., which was the WAC
training center for six years before the operation was moved to Fort
McClellan in 1954.
"The WAC Museum will continue to exist," said Gary Harvey, a Defense
Department official at McClellan who is coordinating the closure of the
base.
Army assurances cut little ice in WAC circles.
"We never dreamed this would happen," said Clarke, now retired in nearby
Jacksonville, Ala. "The Army has not treated us right on this."
Women who served in the WAC tolerated discrimination on a scale that is
almost unthinkable - and largely forgotten - today. Created out of wartime
necessity in 1942 as an auxiliary to the all-male Army, many of the women
served overseas. Initially none was provided life insurance or could get
veterans health benefits. If they died, their parents received no death
benefits.
At first, WACs were limited to such jobs as clerk, typist and cook. Some
served abroad during World War II and later during the Korean and
Vietnam wars. They were excluded from combat, but their roles gradually
broadened to include medical support, intelligence work, military police
and later aircraft repair.
Chambliss and other retired WACs believe that the evolution of women's role
in the Army, a process that continues today, can best be told and preserved
in the WAC Museum, which stands near Galloway Gate, a fort entryway named
for Irene O. Galloway, a former WAC director who died of cancer in 1963.
Carol McCormick, a retired WAC first sergeant, doubts the Army will take
the trouble, and invest the necessary money, to duplicate the extensive
exhibits at another base. She fears that the window on women's Army history
will be shuttered.
"The nightmare is, you move artifacts into a storage facility and will they
ever be seen again?" she said.
Cathy Alshire, president of the WAC Veterans Association, whose national
headquarters is in Anniston, Ala., takes a similar view. She says moving
the museum to another base could be a good thing if it were used as a
training tool to teach young female soldiers how the trail to wider Army
opportunities was blazed by the women who served as WACs.
"But I don't think it will," she said. "I'm not even sure it will be a
tourist attraction."
The museum draws about 15,000 visitors a year, said Jerry Burgess, the curator.
One display in the museum notes that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower told Congress
during debate on disbanding the WAC at the end of World War II that he had
been "violently against" creating the WAC in the first place. The Allied
forces commander added that the women's war record "convinced me of the
error of my first reaction."
Eisenhower's view won the day, and the WAC remained until 1978.
Women have won many skirmishes in the male-dominated military, but the
museum war may be lost.
"We feel defeated," said Bettie Morden, a retired colonel who served
throughout the 36-year history of the WAC and who is now president of the
WAC Foundation.
(Copyright 1997)
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Opponents claim £10.9m stone box will damage integrity of Fitzwilliam
Opponents claim £10.9m stone box will damage integrity of Fitzwilliam's classical facade
Dons protest at museum extension
BY MARCUS BINNEY
THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is under fierce attack for wanting to
cut a huge hole in one of its historic facades. The museum is the
masterpiece of George Basevi, Sir John Soane's favourite pupil. Begun in
1834, it has long been acknowledged as the most imposing classical museum
in Britain after the British Museum.
No fewer than six additions have been made to the south of the museum since
1920, but now the Fitzwilliam Syndics (as the museum's trustees are
quaintly known) have proposed a new addition to the hitherto untouched
north flank. This has aroused opposition from the architecturally minded
dons of Peterhouse, who are outraged at the prospect of a plainly detailed
stone box looming into view in front of Basevi's design.
The architects of the new extension are John Miller and Partners. They
claim that the extension, set back 35 yards from the road on which the
museum stands, will be barely visible to the passer-by. Much of the new
accommodation will be underground.
Duncan Robinson, the museum's director, vigorously denies he will be
destroying original stonework. "Visitors will enter the new pavilion
through an existing tall window aperture. It will be like the Sackler
Galleries at the Royal Academy, with the stonework of both old and new
buildings visible through a glass link." Members of the university have
written to the Senate claiming that damage will be permanent and the
solution short term in relation to the museum's constant needs for
increased space.
The position and size of the new pavilion is based on a drawing by Basevi
showing a pair of wings in outline, though it could be argued that, by
indicating such small wings, set so far back, he was simply showing his
distaste for any additions at all. The new accommodation is required
principally for the museum's fine collection of coins and medals but will
also provide much needed conservation studios as well as disabled access.
Gareth Jones, QC, the university Vice-Chancellor, who is chairman of the
syndics, said: "Like the additions of 80 years ago, the new wing aims at
dignified simplicity so as not to compete in any way with the richness of
Basevi's facades."
The Fitzwilliam is unlikely to have an easy passage. The Victorian Society
said it was "sharpening the knives". English Heritage has referred a
decision to a full meeting of its commissioners. Giles Worsley, editor of
Perspectives, commented: "The design is neither one thing nor the other.
It's just another pale extension in conservation-speak."
No one can seriously claim that Mr Miller's discreet and ingeniously
planned addition is a monstrous carbuncle, but at £10.9 million it is quite
an expensive pimple.
The Times
June 07 1997 OPINION
We no longer mutilate pictures to make space, yet a great Cambridge museum
can still have its façade ruined, says John Adamson
The Fitzwilliam's enemy within
There is a saying in Texas: "Bigger may not necessarily be better - but
it's more." It is an aphorism which might well serve as the mission
statement of our national art museums. From the National Gallery [Next Hit]
down, there is hardly a major gallery in England without its gleaming new
extension, or which does not have plans afoot for further expansion.
So far, where there has been controversy, it has been about architecture:
witness the recent fracas over the V&A's proposal for a new wing designed
to resemble a pile of half-squashed cardboard boxes. But one question has
slipped through not just unanswered, but unasked. Is all this expansionism
invariably a Good Thing?
The latest set of proposals from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, now
before the Royal Fine Art Commission and English Heritage, raise this
question as a matter for national concern. Having already notched up six
extensions since the 1920s, the Fitzwilliam's Syndics (or trustees) are
promoting a radical scheme for a further extension - at an estimated cost
of more than £10 million. One must, of course, be sympathetic. Given that
almost every gallery is continuing to acquire works, while being opposed to
"de-accessioning" (museumspeak for selling things) lest this frighten off
future donors, the implication is clear: our museums will go on
accumulating, and getting ever larger, it seems, indefinitely. They thus
face alternatives: either an ever higher proportion of their collections
will go into storage; or more space must be found to display the
collections and to house the curatorial staff. Museums are immune from any
consideration of the "optimum size". Big is not only beautiful; it is
inevitable. But at what cost to the fabric of our museum buildings, many of
which are works of art in themselves? Here, the threatened consequences are
far from benign - as the Fitzwilliam case demonstrates.
What sets the Fitzwilliam Museum apart, even before one gets to its
collections, is that it inhabits one of the great architectural monuments
of the 19th century. Designed in 1834 by George Basevi (1794-1845), the
pupil and protégé of Sir John Soane, it is a great, free-standing temple to
the arts, approached through a massive Corinthian portico. It is the major
public building which Soane himself never had the opportunity to build, and
it has long been recognised as one of the finest buildings of its date
anywhere. What happens to it is thus a matter of national concern.
So far, so good. The Basevi Building's status has preserved it from the
piecemeal "extensionism" which has blighted so many of our historic
museums. Not that the Fitzwilliam has stood still; it has expanded
steadily. But, early this century, the foresighted University Fathers,
conscious that they were custodians of "a building which is counted amongst
the most successful architectural achievements of the 19th century", bought
a large site to the south (twice the size of the site occupied by the
Basevi Building) to accommodate future expansion. All subsequent additions
have been built there, where their visual impact on Basevi's temple has
been kept to a minimum.
Not so the proposed building. The Syndics want to cut a hole through one of
the façades. A bulky, three-storey wing will jut out to the right of the
building (as viewed from the street), rising almost to the full height of
the original museum. Something approaching a third of Basevi's northern
façade will be demolished, and a large part of the garden at the side will
also be lost.
Of course, the Syndics can make a plausible case for another extension: the
requirement for more gallery space, offices, conservation workshops,
facilities for disabled visitors, and lavatories. But all of the proposed
amenities could be accommodated on the museum's southern site, where there
remains space for substantial development. Demolishing part of Basevi's
façade would, at best, provide only a short-term solution to the museum's
needs; the damage to the building would be permanent.
What may seem at first like another spat among dons, actually raises much
larger issues. Indeed, what is astonishing about the proposal to demolish a
third of the Fitzwilliam's façade is that it should ever have been
seriously contemplated. It highlights how arbitrarily the guardians of our
heritage choose to privilege one form of "art" over another, and how the
decisions about which bits of our "heritage" are deemed worthy of
protection are affected by the whims of fashion.
Compare an earlier solution to the problems of space: in the last century
it was acceptable in certain quarters to lop several feet off an over-large
canvas - a Rubens or Van Dyck, say - and to reframe the picture to fit the
space. Today, there is scarcely a museum which does not possess at least
one major painting which has been cut down to solve a "problem of space".
Such solutions now seem little short of barbarous. Yet nowadays, when it is
a building which happens to be the masterpiece for the chop, our museums'
scruples are far less sensitively honed. "Cutting down" Grade I listed
facades can be proposed (albeit with a certain amount of hand-wringing) by
the very same people who would be appalled by such a proposal if it were a
painting; and without the slightest sense of the double standard.
The question which the Fitzwilliam controversy raises is whether or not we
are still prepared to accept that double standard. Issues of what is
acceptable in relation to our "heritage" tend to be defined, like legal
precedents, on a case-by-case basis. The Fitzwilliam is a test case. What
is being proposed is unacceptable, not just because there are alternative
sites for the museum's expansion, but because it will damage irreparably a
building which is as distinguished, in its way, as many of the works of art
it houses.
If we cannot, or do not want to, stop the juggernaut of museum expansion,
we can at least reroute it. Alternative sites exist, as at the Fitzwilliam.
But smashing holes in Grade I listed buildings should now be numbered -
along with cutting down Old Masters - among the solutions to museums'
"problems of space" which we are no longer prepared to tolerate.
The author is a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
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