COLLECTION NAME:
Undergraduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
Reclaiming the Masterpiece: Herbert List's Postwar Photographs
Creator:
Casey, Madison
Subject:
Thesis (B.F.A.) -- Art History
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
"Much has been written on Adolf Hitler's mission to steal Europe's greatest cultural treasures for his Führermuseum during the Second World War (1939–1945), and, more recently, the heroic efforts of the Monuments Men in recovering these looted artworks were recounted in George Clooney's cinematic adaptation of Robert Edsel's book of the same name. There are numerous studies regarding the Nazi Kunstraub (art theft), as well as the exhibition of Entartete Kunst (degenerate art). However, less scholarship exists that addresses the proliferation of photographs taken of these stolen artworks and the way in which these photographs changed representations and transformed the meanings of these works. While the photographs taken by Nazis of stolen works appear to have been intended to function as mere documentation, they served as another method of propaganda for the Third Reich. Following the end of the war, when the now recovered artworks were moved to Central Collecting Points (CCP) to be archived and repatriated, German photographer Herbert List (1903–1975), having fled the country at the onset of the war, created a series of photographs featuring these artworks for the American magazine Heute. List's striking images serve as photographic proof of life for many of these works held hostage and thought never to be seen again. He captures the liminal space in which works such as Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine and Sandro Botticelli's Madonna with Child and Singing Angels existed between Fascism and repatriation, a unique moment in time in which some of the world's greatest artistic treasures were concentrated in one place. List's photographs facilitate the shedding of political meanings imposed upon the artworks by the National Socialists, and are representative of a homecoming not only for List himself, but for the artworks as well, as these images signal a symbolic reclamation of stolen treasures." -- Abstract
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia: Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2022-05
Format:
1 online resource: 1 PDF (Thesis, 46 pages, illustrations)