Expert on culture in Nazi Germany to speak about the recovery of looted works of art | Press Releases

The recovery and return of looted works of art has become a story of good overcoming evil. In this Fairfield University lecture, Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos, the author of three books on culture in Nazi Germany, seeks to complicate that narrative.

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (February 11, 2015) - Jonathan Petropoulos, Ph.D., author of three books on culture in Nazi Germany, will present a new narrative on the recovery and return of looted works of arts at a Fairfield University lecture. His talk entitled, “Artists Culture and Barbarism in Nazi Germany and the Postwar Period: Gray Zones, Difficult Histories, and the Challenges of Mastering the Past,” will take place on Monday, February 23, 2015, at 7 p.m. in the Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery, located in the Quick Center for the Arts. It is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Elizabeth Hastings at ehastings@fairfield.edu

Dr. Petropoulos, the John V. Croul Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College, specializes in the study of European history, Germany, Holocaust art theft/looted art, the radical right wing, and World War II.

His latest book, “Artists Under Hitler: Collaboration and Survival in Nazi Germany” (Yale University Press, 2014), examines the attempts of artists to find acceptance and accommodation within the Nazi regime. Dr. Petropoulos presents the way they individually dealt with the regime’s opposition to modern art and the difficult moral questions and choices they had to face.

Richard J. Evans said in The Sunday Times, “Anyone interested in a humane account of the dilemmas facing artists in Nazi Germany will gain a new level of understanding from this book.” This event is presented by Fairfield University’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts, the Bellarmine Museum of Art, the Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies, the MFA in Creative Writing Program, the Learning for a Lifetime Program, the History Department and the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

For directions to the Fairfield campus, visit http://www.fairfield.edu/directions/ .