Showing posts with label Dega. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dega. Show all posts

Nov 24, 2018

Otto Wittmann's curious story

Victoria Dubourg by DEGAS at the Toledo Museum of Art
1963.45  http://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/55168



Otto Wittmann, director of the Toledo Museum of Art from 1959 to 1977,  tells the "strange story" of how paintings by Degas and Cézanne came to Toledo in his interview "The museum in the creation of community".


According to the website of the Toledo Museum of Art, William Levis donated one Degas and one Cézanne to the Museum. Could these be the same Degas and Cézanne Otto Wittmann says were loaned to the National Gallery of Art by art dealers during World War II?
https://archive.org/details/museumincreation00witt/page/n7
see: Otto Wittmann by Wittmann, Otto, 1911-2001, interviewee; Cándida Smith, Richard, interviewer; Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, compiler; J. Paul Getty Trust, publisher
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WITTMANN: "I'll tell you one strange story about the National Gallery..."