This exhibition catalogue focuses on the transfer of 202 paintings from the Berlin State Museums -including many of the greatest 15th to 18th-century works in the Gemäldegalerie- to the United States in the aftermath of World War II. In November 1945, the U.S. military government in Germany ordered that "at least 200 German works of art of greatest importance" be sent to Washington for safekeeping. After two years in storage, they were exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and in thirteen other cities across the country in 1948-49, before returning to Germany. The essays in the catalogue explore the controversy that surrounded this transfer of patrimony, as well as the reception of the paintings themselves in the United States. At the heart of the book is Walter I. Farmer, who served in the US Army as a Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives officer -a 'Monuments Man'- and as Director of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point (1945-46), which housed thousands of artworks recovered at the end of the war. Farmer is responsible for the Wiesbaden Manifesto, which protested the shipment of paintings to the United States and was signed by two-thirds of the Monuments officers active in Europe. Following the war, he was a resident of Cincinnati and stalwart supporter of the arts in the region for almost fifty years.
Cultural property--Moral and ethical aspects
Sold and stolen : the use and abuse of paintings in Nazi Germany and during World War II / Peter Jonathan Bell -- Map : the movements of the "202" -- Walter Farmer and the Central Collecting Point in Wiesbaden / Tanja Bernsau -- Making art history : the masterpieces' postwar tour / Kristi A. Nelson -- The road (back) to Berlin : the endless journey of the "202" / Neville Rowley -- Walter Ings Farmer : memories of a life -- What's past is prologue : provenance research in American museums / Nancy Yeide -- Catalogue -- Appendix : paintings from the Berlin museums.
Traveling exhibitions--Political aspects United States--History--20th century