April 8, 2010
Monuments officer and U.S. Army veteran Mary Regan Quessenberry, died today, age 94. Mary was the sole living connection to the beginning of the Monuments Men efforts and the key people whose vision led to their creation. From Langdon Warner, the great scholar of Asian art and swashbuckling explorer, to Paul Sachs, the founder of the first museum studies course in America, to Mason Hammond, legendary professor of Classics at Harvard: Mary knew them all. We were so fortunate to find her and film her memories and stories while she was in good health.
December 9, 2009
After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S. soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler‟s home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a close. Making his way through the Berghof, Hitler‟s home near Berchtesgaden, Germany, Pistone noticed a table with shelves underneath. Exhilarated by the certainty of victory over the Nazis, Pistone took an album filled with photographs of paintings as a souvenir.
November 10, 2009
Today the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal, announced they have identified a second living female member of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (“MFAA”), or “Monuments Men” as they were more commonly known: Mary Regan Quessenberry of Boston, Massachusetts.
October 22, 2009
Monuments Men Foundation Announces that Famous Murillo Paintings Stolen from Rothschild Family in Paris, later discovered by the Monuments Men during World War II, have been Identified at SMU’s Meadows Museum
Based on new evidence about the systematic looting of art from Jewish owners in the course of hostilities in Europe during World War II, a pair of famous paintings on display at SMU’s Meadows Museum created by Spanish master Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1618-1682) of Seville’s Patron Saints Justa and Rufina, estimated to be worth more than $10 million, are believed to have been stolen from the Rothschild family in Paris in 1941. The Nazi ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg) code evidencing Rothschild ownership is still visible on the stretcher bar of one of the paintings; it appears to have been rubbed off the other. The Monuments Men Foundation, recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal for its work preserving the legacy of these unknown heroes, which it received from the President of the United States at a White House ceremony, is continuing its research to document conclusively whether both paintings were properly restituted to the rightful owners prior to donation to the Meadows Museum.
December 14, 2007
Official documentation from the IRS of the public charity status of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art
November 16, 2007
Videos and photo of the National Humanities Medal Ceremony and the National Archives “Hitler Album” Donation event of November 16, 2007