Monuments Men: Stratton Hammon

Stratton Owen Hammon (March 6, 1904–October 22, 1997) was a Louisville, Kentucky architect known for his Colonial Revival style homes.

Hammon was a graduate of DuPont Manual High School in Louisville where he studied art and architectural drafting. He studied architecture briefly at the University of Louisville. He learned the architecture trade working with a Louisville builder named Murphy and opened his own architecture practice during the height of the Great Depression. He is known for the more than 100 distinctive homes he designed in Kentucky and for the house plans that he published in magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens and McCall's throughout the United States. It is impossible to know how many homes were built based on these plans in various parts of the United States.

He became the 30th Kentucky registered architect in 1930 and was later president of the Kentucky Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

During World War II, Hammon served as Captain in the Corps of Engineers, supervising construction projects such as Columbus Air Support Base in Columbus, Indiana. He participated in the Normandy Invasion in June 1944 and also served as one of the Monuments Men at the close of the war. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by the end of the war. The French government awarded him both the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor for his efforts in France during World War II

The Speed Museum in Louisville mounted an exhibition of Hammon's work in 2007 and a book was published that same year containing photographs of many Hammon homes and a definitive record of his Kentucky commissions. Architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson has lectured on Hammon's work at the Filson Historical Society.

He is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

Monuments Men: Mason Hammond

Mason Hammond (1903–2002), was a Harvard University professor, authority on Latin and the history of Rome and its empire, and former chairman of the board of trustees at St. Mark's School.

Professor Hammond's work has proven highly durable. His book City State and World State was still in print 51 years after it was first published as City-State and World State in Greek and Roman Political Theory Until Augustus. Another book The Antonine Monarchy remained available 43 years after it first appeared in bookstores.

Professor Hammond joined Harvard's faculty in 1928 and was its Pope professor of the Latin language and literature from 1950 until he retired from the post in 1973. During World War II Hammond served as an intelligence officer in the Army Air Forces in Europe and worked to protect valuable artwork.

He received a bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Harvard and also studied at Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar. In 1928, Mason Hammond returned to Harvard, where he began his career in the Classics and History departments. From 1937 to 1939, 1951 to 1952, and 1955 to 1957 he was in charge of classical studies at the American Academy in Rome, and he served two appointments as acting director of the Villa I Tatti, Harvard’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. He was awarded the Harvard Medal by the Harvard Alumni Association in 1987, and in 1994 the University conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Following his retirement as professor, he worked for many years as a Harvard Historian, contributing extensively researched monographs on such topics as the stained glass in Memorial Hall, music at Commencement, Harvard china, Latin and Greek inscriptions on College buildings, and the gated enclosures of the Yard.

Monuments Men: Deane Keller

Deane Keller as a Monuments Man
From Wikipedia.com
Deane Keller (December 14, 1901–April 12, 1992) was an American artist, academic, soldier, art restorer and preservationist. He taught for 40 years at Yale University's School of Fine Arts.

lifeKeller was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1901.[1] His father, Albert Galloway Keller, was just another member of the junior faculty at Yale; but during young Deane's formative years, his father would become the first William Graham Sumner Professor of Sociology.[2]

As a student at Yale, he earned degrees in history and science in 1923. Further studies led to a B.F.A. from the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1926.[1]

Keller was awarded the Gran Prix de Rome in 1926. He was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome (FAAR) for three years.

Academic career
In 1929, Keller began his career as a member of the Yale faculty. He taught at Yale for forty years, retiring in 1970.

His academic career was interrupted by military service in the Second World War. At war's end, he returned to teach at Yale's School of Fine Arts.

World War II
Captain Deane Keller served in the U.S. 5th Army between 1943 and 1946. He was a Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Officer in Tuscany. Capt. Keller was responsible for the identification and transportation of artworks in Tuscany

Monuments Men: S. Lane Faison

from Wikipedia
S. Lane Faison (November 16, 1907 – November 11, 2006) was an art history professor at Williams College. Faison headed the art history department at Williams from 1940 to 1969 and remained on the full-time faculty until 1976. Several of his students went on to direct major museums including Earl A. Powell III of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, Glenn D. Lowry of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Thomas Krens of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

He was himself trained at Williams by Karl E. Weston, who inspired an earlier generation of art scholars in the 1920s.

Mr. Faison was a Navy Reservist during World War II. In 1945 he was posted to the Office of Strategic Services' Art Looting Investigation Unit. He wrote the official report [see external link below] on Adolf Hitler's collection of stolen art. Five years later, he supervised the return of stolen art under the direction of the Department of State.

In 2004 the following quote appeared in the New York Times:

I always stressed two things. One has to do with the connection of art to history, with the fact that every work of art was done somewhere and some when, and that this is very important to understand. The other side has to do with the medium of art, which is quite different from the subject. What we're talking about is color and shape. You'd be surprised at the number of people who come to Williams, and I think this is generally true of American students, with absolutely no idea of what the word 'shape' means or what you can do with it and why it's important. They have easily mastered the medium of language, but many of them know very little about the medium of art

.
S. Lane Faison died on November 11, 2006 in Williamstown, Massachusetts five days shy of his 99th birthday.

Source
--The New York Times, October 28, 1997, An Art Lover Who Awakened a Generation by Judith H. Dobrzynski
--The New York Times, March 31, 2004 Wednesday, Late Edition - Final, Section G; Column 1; Museums; Pg. 10; LEGACY, 1434 words, One College's Long Shadow: Looking Back at the 'Williams Mafia', By STEPHEN KINZER, CHICAGO
--The Washington Post, November 17, 2006, Obituary.
Michael J. Lewis, “An Art Teacher’s Art Teacher,” Commentary 123, no. 4 (April 2007), pp. 58-62

Booklist: The Monuments Men, by Robert M. Edsel

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert M. Edsel
Hachette Book Group 2009
426 pages, plus cast of characters, Notes, Bibliography, Acknowledgments and Index. 16 pages of b&w photos

Description
As Hitler was attempting to conquer the Western world, his armies were methodically pillaging the finest art in Europe, from Michelangelos and da Vincis to van Eycks and Vermeers, all stolen for the Fuhrer.

The Monuments Men had a mandate from President Roosevelt and the support of GEneral Eisenhower, but no vehicles, gasoline, typewriters or authority. In a race against time to save the world's greatest cultural treasures from destructions at the hands of Nazi fanatics, each man gathered scraps and hints to construct his own treasure map using records recovered from bombed cathedrals and museums, the notes and journals of Rose Valland, a French museum employee who secretly tracked Nazi plunder through the railyards of Paris, and even a tip from a dentist during a root canal.

These unlikely heroes, mostly middle-aged family men, walked away from successful careers into the epicenter of the war, risking-and some losing-their lives. Like other members of the Greatest Generation, they embodied the courageous spirit that enabled the best of humanity to defeat the worst.

This is their story.

Table of Contents
Author's Notes
Main Characters

I. The Mission
1. Out of Germany
2. The Call to Arms
4. A Dull and Empty World
5. Leptis Magna
6. The First Campaign
7. Monte Cassino
8. Monuments, Fine Art and Archives
9. The Task

II. Northern Europe
10. Winning Respect
11. A Meeting in the Field
12. Michaelangelo's Madonna
13. The Cathedral and the Masterpiece
14. Van Eyck's Mystic Lamb
15. James Rorimer Visits the Louvre
16. Entering Germany
17. A Field Trip
18. Tapestry
19. Christmas Wishes
20. The Madonna of La Gleize
21. The Train
22. The Bulge
23. Champagne

III. Germany
24. A German Jew in the US Army
25. Coming Through the Battle
26. The New Monuments Man
27. George Stout with his Maps
28. Art on the Move
29. Two Turning Points
30. Hitler's Nero Decree
31. First Army Across the Rhine
32. Treasure Map
33. Frustration
34. Inside the Mountain
35. Lost
36. A Week to Remember

IV. The Void
37. Salt
38. Horror
39. The Gauleiter
40. The Battered Mine
41. Last Birthday
42. Plans
43. The Noose
44. Discoveries
45. The Noose Tightens
46. The Race
47. Final Days
48. The Translators
49. The Sound of Music
50. End of the Road

V. The Aftermath
51. Understand Altaussee
52. Evacuation
53. The Journey Home
54. Heroes of Civilization

Cast of Characters
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
What is your connection to the story?
Index

Booklist: The Venus Fixers, by Ilaria Dagnini Brey

The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who SAved Italy's Art During WWII, by Ilaria Dagnini Brey
Farrar, Srtrau and Giroux, 2009
262 pages plus notes, bibliography, index and 16 pages of b&w photos

Description
In 1943, while the world was convulsed with war, a few wisionaries--in the private sector and in the military--commited to protect Europe's cultural heritage from the indiscriminate ravages of battle.

And so the Allies appointed Monuments Officers, a motley group of art historians, curators, architects and artists, to ensure that the masterpieces of European art and architecture were not looted or bombed into oblivion. Often working as shellfire exploded around them, the Monuments Officers of Italy shored up tottering palaces and cathedrals, safeguarded Michaelangelos and Giottos, and even blocked a Nazi convoy of stolen paintings bound for Goring's birthday celebrations. Sometimes they failed. But to an astonishing degree they succeeded, and their story in an unparalleled adventure with the gorgeous tints of a Botticelli as its backdrop.

Table of Contents
Maps
Prologue
1. Italian Art goes to war
2. "Men must manouevre"
3. Sicilian Prelude
4. The Birth of the Venus Fixers
5. The Confict of the present and the past
6. Treasure Hunt
7. Florence divided
8. A time to rend, a time to sew
9. The Duelists
10. Alpine Loot
Epilogue: A Necessary Dream

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Manifesto

This blog focuses on the topic of the fate of art - paintings and sculpture - before, during and after World War II.

When Germany was at its most triumphant, during the early part of the war, treasures from the conquered countries were brought in to Germany.

When Germany was being destroyed by the resurgent Allies, during the latter half of the war, every effort was made (except during the second battle of Monte Cassino) to avoid damaging any historic cities and their artwork. The artwork that had been confiscated was hidden away.

Some of it is only now surfacing.