UPI Art Notes

On Sept. 11, there were four paintings on international flights to Washington. They were intended for an exhibition called "Impressionist Still Life" at the Phillips Collection. When U.S. airports were closed in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon the planes had to turn back. Would the foreign lenders now have a change of heart? Three of the paintings arrived a week later; the fourth, "Monet's Jar of Peaches" finally showed up just in time to be hung before the exhibition opening on Nov. 9.

Phillips director Jay Gates heaved a sigh of relief. But the worrying question is still unanswered: what will be the long-term impact of Sept. 11 on the system of museum art loans that makes major art exhibitions possible?

Gates says, "It's too early to be sure what's going to happen."

A few openings had to be postponed, but otherwise the signs are promising -- so far. The New York Metropolitan Museum's unprecedented father-and-daughter exhibition of works by 17th century artists Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi is still on track to open on Feb. 14.

The National Gallery in Washington says there is no change in its March 10 blockbuster "Goya: Images of Women" to which the Prado Museum in Madrid is sending 14 major pictures.

But there are clouds on the horizon. Insurance rates, which have been stable for years, have started to increase, hiking the overall cost of such exhibitions. Under new security rules, airlines have begun refusing to allow couriers to travel on cargo planes with art works -- an important precondition for most lenders.

In the past five years. Artemisia Gentileschi's work and personal life has emerged from the shadows thanks to a flurry of scholarly interest. When she was 19 she accused her father Orzio's leading associate, Agostino Tassi, of raping her, and remarkably the transcript of his lengthy trial has survived in all its colorful detail. Tassi denied the charges and called Artemisia an "insatiable whore."

In the pre-trial investigation, she was actually tortured in an attempt to ascertain that she was telling the truth! In the end the charges were dropped and Tassi went free. The exhibition, which includes 34 of Artemisia's works, or virtually every one that has survived from a prolific career, is currently showing in Rome, but in a somewhat reduced form. Missing are the pictures owned by Americans, United Press International has learned, most of whom refuse to send Italian Old Master works to Italy, fearing that they might be seized by the Italian government.

The Italian government seems to have ridden out the storm of protest that greeted its plan to privatize Italy's museums. Knowledgeable sources now say the administration of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is likely to win the privatization vote, scheduled for early next year.

At the height of the controversy, 37 foreign museum directors signed a letter urging the Rome government to reconsider its decision, but international pressure failed to stop the project from going forward. Political opposition has come from the left, which paints a grim picture of cheap commercialization if some of the finest art collections in the world end up under private management.

An independent report published this week makes the point that if museums are to survive without the massive state aid they now receive, Italians are going to have to develop a culture of private support which doesn't exist today. Even with state help, the report says, only 26 percent of all museums break even, and they are the major ones like the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which receive 72 percent of all visitors.

The change was being contemplated at a time of rising costs throughout the world, the report went on. By way of example, it said every visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York cost the Met around $26.

Where would you find the biggest collection of paintings of Adolf Hitler -- about 40 of them, in fact? If you said Germany you'd be wrong. The correct answer is Washington.

During World War II, the advancing U.S. Army found a cellar-full of Hitler art in Potsdam and brought it back to the United States. The pictures, painted at different times and by different artists, had apparently been commissioned by the German army and are mostly hagiographic -- Hitler as a Teutonic knight in white armor, riding a white charger and carrying a spear; the Fuehrer as the father of his troops shown at the front-line surrounded by admiring young, blond soldiers; Hitler at the Reichstag in Berlin delivering one of his rousing speeches.

The U.S. Army keeps the paintings in a downtown Washington storage facility. The army receives a sufficient number of requests for loans of some of the works from museums and other institutions for exhibitions to justify its argument that they have historic value, and should not be destroyed. Successive U.S. administrations have tried to hand the collection back to Germany under a law requiring the United States to restore spoils of war to the Germans, but successive German governments have refused to accept it. Why? It's illegal to be in possession of portraits of Hitler in Germany.

Italy continues to live up to its reputation of having more reported art thefts than any other European country. The latest: a valuable painting attributed to Francisco Goya was taken from an exhibition titled "From Rubens to Goya" in Turin. It's a portrait of Ugolino della Gherardesca, a legendary Medieval nobleman who was accused of eating his children. The work, insured for half a million dollars, was small enough for a thief to have tucked it under his coat and walked away.