Altaussee Salt/Art Mine discovery after WW II
Lieutenants Kern & Sieber, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What must it have been like for Samson Lane Faison, Jr., James S. Plaut, Theodore Rousseau, Jr. and Jean Vlug to watch their reports on Nazi art looting and art dealer networks be buried and lost?

The ALIU reports contained names, dates, places, specific events, artworks - crucial information for tracking down looted art.

All classified. Hidden away. Inaccessible. Unknown. Unexplored.

What lesson could these museum men possibly have learned from Washington's treatment of their historic work?

When, in 2001, the reports were to be published on microfiche, Dr. Greg Bradsher contacted S. Lane Faison, to tell him the news that their work would finally be public and to ask permission to give Faison's phone number to journalists who might want to know more. Bradsher described the conversation in a blog post for the National Archives:

On April 23, 2001, I phoned Professor Faison and told him the National Archives was issuing the next day a press release announcing the release of Microfilm Publication M-1782, “OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46.” I told him the microfilmed records—including the detailed, consolidated, and final reports—were being made available on May 8, the 56th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s discovery of the salt mine at Alt Aussee, Austria, where the greatest concentration of Nazi plunder from Western Europe was concealed. I asked him if he minded me making his phone number available if I received press inquiries about the records and the work of the ALIU. He said at his age it was tough enough to get up to change the television channel, much less answer the phone regarding things he had done ages ago and which were well-documented in the records we were making available. So, yes, he did mind.

- "An Office of Strategic Services Monuments Man: S. Lane Faison"

This is the seventh in an ongoing series of posts on real-life Monuments Men. Today’s post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher. See related posts on Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, Walter J. Huchthausen, Seymour J. Pomrenze, Mason Hammond, Edith Standen, and Karol Estreicher.

January 16, 2014 By US National Archives, Posted In Monuments Men

The Looted Art Bibliography lists 398 references to newspaper articles, journals, books and monographs about looted art. However, many of these seem to be difficult to find online today, even for major publications like Artnews.*

Where, for example, can one find, access and read the following articles written by Konstantin Akinsha and published in ArtNews?

10	Akinsha, Konstantin	Russia: whose art is it?	ARTnews 91, no	5(May 1992): 100+
4	Akinsha, Konstantin	The secret depositories slowly open	ARTnews 91, no	4(April 1992): 48+
5	Akinsha, Konstantin	A Soviet-German exchange of war treasures?	ARTnews 90, no	5(May 1991): 134-139
6	Akinsha, Konstantin	The turmoil over Soviet war treasures	ARTnews 90, no	10(December 1991): 110-115
7	Akinsha, Konstantin	Duma does it	ARTnews 96, no	4(April 1997): 65-66
8	Akinsha, Konstantin	Hermitage sequel	ARTnews 96, no	3(March 1997): 56
9	Akinsha, Konstantin	War loot: drawings for Deutsche Marks?	ARTnews 91, no	7(September 1992): 35
11	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	Spoils of war: the Soviet Union's hidden art treasures	ARTnews 90, no	4(April 1991): 130-141
12	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	Yeltsin - repatriation is a long way off	ARTnews 91, no	6(Summer 1992): 45+
13	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	Moscow: war loot - drawings for Deutsche marks?	ARTnews(September 1992)
14	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	To return or not to return	ARTnews 93, no	8(October 1994): 154+
15	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	Moscow: let the museums decide	ARTnews(December 1992)
17	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	Das Gold von Troja liegt in Moskau (Trojan gold residing in Moscow)	ARTnews 4(April 1993)
18	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	The Soviets' war treasures: a growing controversy	ARTnews 90, no	7(September 1991): 112-119
19	Akinsha, Konstantin and Grigorii Kozlov	The discovery of the secret repositories	In The spoils of war - World War II and its aftermath: the loss, reappearance, and recovery of cultural property, 162-165	New York: Harry N
16	Akinsha, Konstantin, Grigorii Kozlov and Sylvia Hochfield	Stolen treasure: the hunt for the world's lost masterpieces	London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995	xiii, 301 pp

*In 2015 it was announced that, as part of a merger, "‘ARTnews’ Magazine Ceases Monthly Print Publication After 113 Years" but all the concerned publications were to be online by the end of the year. Did this include archives?)

The Looted Art Bibliography contains references to many more informative articles published in Artnews, including:

25	Attias, Laurie	Looking for loot at the Louvre	ARTnews 97, no	4(April 1998): 74
26	Beck, Ernest	Hungary asks Russia for missing art treasures	ARTnews 91, no	4(April 1992): 45+
37	Buomberger, Thomas	The baron's share?	ARTnews(November 1998): 75
41	Cembalest, Robin	It's official: the Trojan Gold is in Russia	ARTnews 92, no	4(April 1993): 125
49	Czernin, Hubertus	Law of return?	ARTnews(November 1998): 80
53	Decker, Andrew	An untapped, if forbidden, source	ARTnews 91, no	7(September 1992): 36+
54	Decker, Andrew	A legacy of shame	ARTnews 83, no	10(December 1984): 54-82
55	Decker, Andrew	My argument was not with the German people""	ARTnews(September 1992): 36 - 37
56	Decker, Andrew and Konstantin Akinsha	A worldwide treasure hunt	ARTnews 90, no	6(Summer 1991): 130-138
57	Decker, Andrew and Milton Esterow	Austria's bid for justice	ARTnews 95, no	11(December 1996): 90
58	Decker, Andrew and Ferdinancd Protzman	Vienna: complexity, contradictions	ARTnews 88, no	5(May 1989): 63
59	Decker, Andrew and Mariana Schroeder	Blocking the black market	ARTnews 94, no	4(April 1995): 46
65	Dornberg, John	The mounting embarrassment of Germany's Nazi treasures	ARTnews 88, no	7(September 1988): 130-141
74	Esterow, Milton	A little justice in Austria	ARTnews 94, no	7(September 1995): Editorial
92	Frankfurter, Alfred M	Return of the Dresden paintings	ARTnews 54(February 1956)
94	Freudenheim, Tom L	Will everything become suspect?	ARTnews 97, no	3(March 1998): 100
133	Henry-Künzel, Ginger and Andrew Decker	Never look a gift horse in the mouth	ARTnews 93, no	4(April 1994): 51-52
138	Hinchberger, Bill	Brazil uncovers Nazi war loot	ARTnews(September 1998): 67
139	Hochfield, Sylvia	St. Petersburg: will the Hermitage return the Degas	ARTnews 94(March 1995)
140	Hochfield, Sylvia	Under a Russian sofa: 101 looted treasures	ARTnews 92, no	4(April 1993): 120-125
141	Hochfield, Sylvia	The Russians renege	ARTnews 93, no	6(Summer 1994): 68+
142	Hochfield, Sylvia	Twice stolen	ARTnews 94, no	4(April 1995): 85-86
143	Hochfield, Sylvia	Nobody knows what to do next	ARTnews 94, no	5(May 1995): 65-66
144	Hochfield, Sylvia	Do the right thing	ARTnews 97, no	2(February 1998): 66
145	Hochfield, Sylvia	Will the Hermitage return the Degas?	ARTnews 94, no	3(March 1995): 48+
146	Hochfield, Sylvia	The Malevich legacy: heirs vs. museums	ARTnews 92, no	9(November 1993): 65+
147	Hochfield, Sylvia	The Russian surprise	ARTnews(January 1999): 56, 58
148	Hochfield, Sylvia	Wrestling with restitution	ARTnews(Summer 1998): 59
149	Hochfield, Sylvia	Back to the drawing room	ARTnews(December 1998): 61
150	Hochfield, Sylvia	Statute with limitations	ARTnews(November 1998): 57
177	Jolis, Alan	War loot goes on-line	ARTnews 95, no	8(September 1996): 58
229	Lauria, Joe	An amicable resolution	ARTnews 97, no	9(October 1998): 54
240	Lowenthal, Constance	The Quedling embarrassment	ARTnews 91, no	6(Summer 1992): 158+
242	Lowenthal, Constance	The Quedling embarrassment	ARTnews 91, no	6(Summer 1992): 158
263	Morey, Charles R	What we are actually doing to save Europe's art	ARTnews 43(May 15-31,1944): 9-10, 24-25
284	Petropoulos, Jonathan	Exposing deep files""	ARTnews 98, no	1(January 1999): 143-144
367	Tully, Judd	The war loot questions: no easy answer	ARTnews 94, no	6(Summer 1995): 144
368	Tully, Judd	The war loot questions: no easy answer	ARTnews 94, no	6(Summer 1995): 144
383	Waxman, Sharon	Austria: ending the legacy of shame	ARTnews 94, no	7(September 1995): 122-125
384	Waxman, Sharon	Justice in Austria... finally?	ARTnews 94, no	1(January 1995): 154+

***

In the interest of facilitating historical research into the Holocaust, looted art and provenance, it would be desirable to place the URL or DOI where the article can be read next to each one of these references. However, for dozens of the articles in the Looted Art Bibliography, it is hard to see how to do this. There is frequently no URL on the publisher site. EBSCO does not always publish the text. Articles are not necessarily discoverable to Google, even if some of them continue to exist behind paywalls. For certain Artnews articles, even paper copies of back issues can, in some cases, be difficult to obtain.

ARTnews publishes author archives. We had hoped to find the articles in the Looted Art Bibliography listed there, but did not have success.

Below, for example, are the Artnews author archives for Konstantin Akinsha, retrieved on October 31, 2019

Author Archives: Konstantin Akinsha

NEWS FEBRUARY 2013

High Court Drama: Scholars, Christie’s, and the Russian Oligarch

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 02/05/13 7:00 AM

A judge decided it was a fake, but some scholars say that a Russian painting sold at Christie’s is genuine READ MORE

NEWS JUNE 2010

Resurrecting Stalin?

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 06/01/10 12:00 AM

Russians debate the future of old monuments to the leader and their meaning for the present. READ MORE

INVESTIGATIONS JUNE 2010

Where the Pictures Don’t Always Match the Labels

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 06/01/10 12:00 AM

Experts say that many of the works attributed to Russian masters in a Venice exhibition are not what they're claimed to be. READ MORE

FEATURES OCTOBER 2009

Art in Russia: Under Attack

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 10/01/09 12:00 AM

With trials, harassment, and other forms of intimidation, Russian authorities are striking out against curators and artists—who are, in turn, organizing projects that are increasingly provocative and political. READ MORE

INVESTIGATIONS FEBRUARY 2009

The Mauerbach Scandal

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 02/01/09 12:00 AM

An exhibition in Vienna brings to light new evidence of Austria’s reluctance to return art looted by the Nazis. READ MORE

INVESTIGATIONS FEBRUARY 2008

The Mysterious Journey of an Erotic Masterpiece

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 02/01/08 12:00 AM

Femme nue couchée, one of several Courbets owned by the Hungarian Jewish collector Baron Ferenc Hatvany, disappeared after World War II from a Budapest bank vault. The painting resurfaced 50 years later in Slovakia, setting off a cat-and-mouse game that resulted in its restitution to Hatvany’s heirs—who loaned it to the Courbet retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris. READ MORE

ARTNEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

Rostropovich Collection Comes Home to Russia

BY Konstantin Akinsha ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10/02/07

On Sept. 14 billionaire Alisher Usmanov acquired the entire art collection of legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007) and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, for more than $70 million. Usmanov immediately announced plans to return the trove—which includes paintings by Boris Grigoriev, Nikolai Roerich and Vladimir Borovikovsky—to Russia. READ MORE

MARKET APRIL 2007

More Demand, More Questions

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 04/01/07

As the market grows for Russian and Eastern European art, forgeries proliferate. READ MORE

INVESTIGATIONS JANUARY 2006

The Scandal Sweeping Russia’s Art Market

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 01/01/06 12:00 AM

Forgers have been retouching hundreds of works by minor European artists, putting the signatures of major Russian artists on them and selling them for many times their worth. READ MORE

ARTNEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

Disputed Larionov Painting Stays Close to Its Russian Roots

BY Konstantin Akinsha ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 12/20/05

Despite serious concerns about the provenance of a Russian artwork—raised just days before the work went on the auction block—it sold for £420,000 ($722,400) to a Russian buyer.
The picture In the Dukhan, Imaginary Journey to Turkey, by Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), was a highlight of the Russian art sale on Nov. 28 at the MacDougall auction house, London. Estimated at £250,000/350,000, the painting had been authenticated by art historian Anthony Parton, Larionov’s biographer and compiler of a forthcoming catalogue raisonné, who wrote that the work was “one of Larionov’s most significant paintings from 1910.” Larionov and his wife, Natalia Goncharova, were major figures of the Russian avant-garde. They settled in Paris in 1917. READ MORE

FEATURES APRIL 2005

Provocateurs, Ghosts, Accomplices, and Starz

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 04/01/05 12:00 AM

Whether the first Moscow Biennale accomplished its aims—to legitimize contemporary art in Russia and to thrust contemporary Russian art onto the international stage—is debatable, but it was certainly the most important art event in the city in many years. READ MORE

FEATURES MAY 2004

‘Orthodox Bulldozer’

BY Konstantin Akinsha POSTED 05/01/04 12:00 AM

Artists whose works deal with religious themes are reviled by the Russian Orthodox Church, while the vandals who destroy their works are hailed as martyrs. READ MORE

... Open Art Data ...

Pages

Aug 5, 2022

Correspondence regarding looted works of art in Switzerland 1945-6 UK Archives

Jul 15, 2021

Cultural property at the Oberfinanzdirektion München Bundesarchiv: archives

Fiduciary management of cultural property at the Oberfinanzdirektion München Bundesarchiv 2010

May 17, 2021

Buried for more than half a century

Oct 31, 2019

ARTNews articles listed in the Looted Art Bibliography