The Rape of Europa
VIEW EVENT DETAILS
Evening Screening
Registration: 6:45pm
Screening: 7:00pm
The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War is an award-winning book written by Lynn H. Nicholas in 1994. It tells the epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe's art treasures during the period. Sharing the same name as the book, the subsequent documentary The Rape of Europa (2006) begins and ends with the story of The Woman in Gold, Gustav Klimt's famed gold portrait stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938. More than 70 years later, the legacy of this tragic history continues to play out as families of looted collectors’ items recover major works of art, conservators repair battle damage and nations fight over the fate of ill-gotten spoils of war. Narrated by actress Joan Allen, the film takes audience into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. But young art professionals as well as ordinary heroes, from truck drivers to department store clerks, fought back with an extraordinary effort to safeguard, rescue and return the millions of lost, hidden and stolen treasures.
George Clooney’s The Monuments Men (2014) is loosely based on the story behind several American Monuments officers also depicted in The Rape of Europa who were drafted into military service to protect monuments and recover displaced art. This special screening of The Rape of Europa is presented at ASHK to coincide with the visit of Larry Keith and Marie Louise Sauerberg as featured speakers under the Behind the Scenes Lecture Series presented by the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong.
Larry Keith is the Director of Collections (interim) National Gallery, London where he has been working since 1991 – first as a paintings conservator and then as Head of Conservation in 2010. He has contributed numerous articles on painting techniques across the range of the Collection for the gallery’s Technical Bulletin, as well as contributions to exhibition catalogs on Diego Velazquez and Leonardo da Vinci. He will be speaking on the topic of “Looking After the Past: Conservation at the National Gallery, London” on October 11, 2016 at 6:30pm at HKU's Rayson Huang Theatre.