A brilliant account of Nazi pillage and the ongoing efforts at restitution.
A scholar tells the story of 20th-century art dealers, the avant-garde and old masters works they promoted, and Nazi plunder.
In 1945, “Jewish gentleman” Lt. James Rorimer, the Harvard-educated director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval branch, was given the job of traveling to Buxheim monastery in Germany and “hunting down an unknown quantity of works of art that the Nazis had despoiled.” He discovered 158 paintings of a quality few museum collections could match, works by Boucher, Fragonard, Delacroix, and others. These would not be the only cultural assets recovered that the Nazis had taken from Jews through a Wehrmacht unit known as ERR; it was a “massive confiscation of fine and decorative art almost immediately after the fall of France and the beginning of the German occupation.” But how did European Jews acquire the art in the first place, given that such works had hitherto been available only to royalty and the landed classes? In this exceptional work of scholarship, Boston University history professor Dellheim “sets out to reframe our picture of Nazi-stolen art” by focusing on “the rise and fall of a small number of Jews, individuals and families, who were both merchants and connoisseurs, dealers and collectors.” The author devotes most of the book to a detailed history of the Jewish dealers and collectors who acquired these artworks—e.g., Nathan Wildenstein, a textile merchant who developed “an astonishingly good eye” for authenticating old masters paintings; and Joseph Duveen, who would become one of the most influential art dealers in history. In the devastating final chapters, Dellheim describes the “cultural violence” of the Nazi dispossession of art and recounts the grotesque goals of “ensuring that museums and galleries were securely judenrein, ‘cleansed’ of Jews,” and “removing old masters from Jewish hands."
A brilliant account of Nazi pillage and the ongoing efforts at restitution.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68458-056-9
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Brandeis Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
HISTORY | ART & PHOTOGRAPHY | HOLOCAUST | JEWISH | WORLD
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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