UKRG Culture Club: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Welcome back to UKRG Culture Club! Every few months we will be looking at how Registrars, and the issues we face, influence and are portrayed in popular culture. A registrar’s role, as we all know, has many different guises – the issues we face are commonly reported in the news and media, and find their way into popular culture. This blog will be reviewing exhibitions that catch our eye and reporting on how registration issues are highlighted in pop culture, through literature, film, music and beyond.

UKRG Committee would love to hear from you! Please send your own UKRG Culture Club reviews to Becca England, Supporting Officer rebecca.england@designmuseum.org.

This month, Becca England, UKRG Supporting Officer is reporting on The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, reviewed by The Guardian as “The story of a boy who loses a mother and gains a painting”

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown and Company, 2013) 784 pp.

*Spoiler alert!

Having hotly anticipated the release of Tartt’s most recent novel after enjoying The Secret History so much, I was thrilled to learn her latest offering would focus on the art world.

The Goldfinch is a fascinating, albeit long, novel that follows the life of Theo Decker. We first meet twelve-year-old Theo at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York with his beloved mother. They are visiting her favourite painting: Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch (in the collection at The Mauritshuis in the Hague and due to be displayed at the Scottish National Gallery next month) which is part of a temporary exhibition of Dutch Masterpieces. Whilst they are visiting, a bomb detonates in the museum and his mother is killed. In the ensuing panic, an elderly man seemingly motions towards The Goldfinch. Theo snatches the painting without considering the ramifications and flees.  The book is an exploration of the emotional and practical consequences of loss, and the potential for a piece of art to haunt your life...

The practicalities of a terror attack in a museum

This book throws particular light on a number of issues Registrars have to manage. As Theo is fleeing the scene after the bomb detonates, Tartt gives us a sense of real life:

“The hallway seemed to stretch for miles. Fearfully I crept along, peering into offices where the doors happened to stand ajar. Cameron Geisler, Registrar. Miyako Fujita, Assistant Registrar.” The specific use of the term Registrar jerked me to life!

Naturally, the entire scenario of the novel is distressing - however even more so for those of us who would be involved in managing the aftermath of an event such as this. As the narrative unfolded, I inevitably started to run through my head the processes a registrar needs to go through should this occur: what are the insurance implications? What would the type of damage be? What immediate conservation would be required? How quickly could we get into the building? How high on the emergency services’ lists would the artworks be in the event of a terror attack? What would the ramifications be for future loan negotiations? How many calls would I have to field from lenders? Where are my checklists??

As well as the practicalities of the terror attack itself, this book does raise an interesting point about the safety of artworks in an emergency situation. Theo’s act is audacious; however the threat of a member of the public stealing an artwork in the melee is real. This story is potentially far-fetched, yet (unfortunately) plausible.

Due Diligence and the blackmarket

The other strand that interested me professionally was the concept of stolen artworks resurfacing decades later. Unbeknownst to Theo, his childhood friend Boris had stolen the painting and replaced it with a textbook of similar weight (!) when they were children. By the time Theo is an adult, The Goldfinch is being used as a bartering tool by gangsters on the black market. Hopefully we won’t ever have to come across provenance this outrageous when performing our Due Diligence research – but it could happen! According to ACE Due Diligence policies, should a borrower deem an artwork to have questionable provenance such as this, they must terminate the loan in order to combat illicit trade. In the case of The Goldfinch turning up in a private collection fifty years after the theft, with no known provenance until that point – we would certainly be suspicious if it was coming in to loan!

A cheeky alternative

A contrasting read should you be interested in the murky world of art crime is Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters. This book isn’t quite the haute literature of Tartt, but it is a rip-roaring yarn about a headhunter who steals art from his clients in order to live the high life. It’s totally outrageous and hilariously entertaining. There is also a film featuring some tasty Norwegian guys – it’s the best kind of homework.

UKRG Culture Club: The Monuments Men, directed by George Clooney (2014)

Welcome back to UKRG Culture Club! Every few months we will be looking at how Registrars, and the issues we face, influence and are portrayed in popular culture. A registrar’s role, as we all know, has many different guises – the issues we face are commonly reported in the news and media, and find their way into popular culture. This blog will be reviewing exhibitions that catch our eye and reporting on how registration issues are highlighted in pop culture, through literature, film, music and beyond.

UKRG Committee would love to hear from you! Please send your own UKRG Culture Club reviews to Becca England, Supporting Officer r.england@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

Now, if you fancy curling up with a DVD this January, you might have thought about having a look at George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. Becca England tells us more.

Dad’s Army meets Show me the Monet?

The reviews of The Monuments Men were not particularly kind when they came out, but I wondered if perhaps the repatriation of stolen artwork just wasn’t sexy enough for the British media. Unfortunately, upon watching I realised that this film is drier than a de-humidifier.

The film follows the story of seven brave curators, conservators, architects and academics that were gathered together to ensure the artwork looted by the Nazis ended up in safe hands (with the Allies). By ’44, the horrendous looting of (predominantly) Jewish collections had become public knowledge, with Hitler planning to display the very best of the haul at his planned Führer Museum in Linz, Austria. As the German army weakened the fear was that the collections would be destroyed when the Third Reich fell, or fall into Russian hands. The gang, with minimal military training, had the daunting task of locating the collections around Europe and ensuring they were recovered. The men managed to save hundreds of thousands of artworks by locating the stashes in salt mines and private homes. Unfortunately, much of the artwork was burnt as the German army fell, with many artworks lost forever. Most of us are also familiar with the vast amount of art that never made it back to its rightful owners, with many cases active today.

Photocall at The National Gallery, London with the cast of the film and real-life Monuments Man Harry Ettlinger 

The peril these brave characters experienced was astonishing; with two soldiers giving their lives to the mission. In real-life however, one brave soldier perished on the mission, being hit by a shell while rescuing a damaged altarpiece. I googled this fact, and discovered that only about 80% of the story was actually based on truth. Here’s a wonderful quote from Gorgeous George, Director:

“Almost all of the scenes happened. Sometimes they happened with other characters...But that’s moviemaking. We’re not killing Hitler in a movie theater... We’re landing at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. We’re not landing there when it was convenient for us to land there. We follow all the rules, we just made the characters more interesting, I think. Not that the real people weren’t interesting. It’s just that, you know...” 

Hmm... truth not that interesting, eh George?

The film itself looks like a big-budget Dad’s Army. The tone for the movie was off for me – this film is neither funny nor serious. It is sanctimonious though, with Clooney delivering three speeches about the importance of preserving art for future generations.  Registrars don’t need to be reminded of that, we care for art for future generations on a daily basis. However, the film did resonate with me following the recent bombing of the Temple of Baalshamin at the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria. The truth is that without the bravery of experts during wartime; artworks and monuments are lost forever. The British Museum’s exhibition in 2011 Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World was a vivid shock to me. At first I felt a little cheated that I had paid to see an exhibition with so little in it... and then I realised that this was all that was left.

My summary would be that this film tells an important story, but would have been better as a documentary  told through real life interview, photographs and footage. Perhaps on BBC4. Narrated by Matt Damon.

A much better alternative

The good news is that... there is a fantastic documentary about this very subject! The Rape of Europa is a fascinating documentary exploring not only the discovery by the Allies of the looted art, but also looking at current claims to artworks and how they are being reunited with their rightful owners over 70 years later. Well worth a watch!

Exhibition Review: Savage Beauty at the V&A

Welcome to the first UKRG Culture Club! Every month we will be looking at how Registrars, and the issues we face, influence and are portrayed in popular culture. A registrar’s role, as we all know, has many different guises – the issues we face are commonly reported in the news and media, and find their way into popular culture. This blog will be reviewing exhibitions that catch our eye and reporting on how registration issues are highlighted in pop culture, through literature, film, music and beyond...

Fingers crossed the next Indiana Jones revolves around the documentation issues surrounding the booty he brought back from the Middle East on his adventures...

UKRG Committee would love to hear from you! Please send your own UKRG Culture Club reviews to Becca England, Supporting Officer r.england@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.



To kick things off, Marie Rose, UKRG Events Officer and Project Co-ordinator at the Natural History Museum went and had a look at the V&A's recent retrospective of Alexander McQueen, Savage Beauty.

As ever a quick nip over the road from The Natural History Museum to the V&A transports me from a world of taxidermy and glass jars to ornate couture fabulousness. My pilgrimage from the church of natural science to the church of the aesthetic is for the very God-like figure himself: Alexander McQueen and the ‘Savage Beauty’ retrospective exhibition which had previously been on display in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I must admit my knowledge of fashion may be limited - my interests have always sat more within the alt-world having spent much of my youth trawling the markets of Camden in search of baggy jeans and faux-Westwood tartan skirts. However, I have always followed McQueen in awe and fascination for the disturbing and often cruel elements that are so characteristic of his craft.

This exhibition doesn’t disappoint: room after room of collections spanning his career are showcased thematically to give a sense of how his imagination evolved. His gothic influences from Edgar Allen Poe to the Highland Clearances which dominated the Highland Rape collection of 1995 are clear. The Romantic Nationalism room is complete with wooden panels and elaborate chandeliers to create a magical sense of atmosphere. The exhibition therefore makes for a decadent boutique rather than a traditional retrospective, shunning the typical chronological or biographical narrative (the facts we learn about McQueen are confusingly minimal) to bring us back to the superficial; the objects themselves.

This mode of display can be problematic,  particularly when showcased in the central dramatic room ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ with Phillip Treacy headpieces and my particular favourite, the Shaun Leane body armour pieces, crammed from wall to ceiling. This room highlights the tension between the need to showcase his work versus the practicality of the visitor’s viewing experience, you can’t help but feel disassociated from these objects when raised so high you have to crane your neck to see them. This layout, borrowed from the Bowie exhibition, serves to create a physical pedestal for the artist on display - albeit a slightly frustrating experience for the audience. This is echoed again in the minimal interpretation with labels deliberately sparse and tucked away.

Overall this exhibition posits itself as the ultimate decadent couture showroom, highlighting the sheer skill of McQueen’s technique: in always designing from the side, the form’s most awkward angle to make his pieces flattering to all possibilities of the female form and not the a-typical model frame. His work also signifies the female form as haunting, dangerous and romantic with many items embracing natural materials such as feathers and razor clam shells to symbolise woman’s role in nature.

As an exhibition this is nothing short of a success of a summer blockbuster, minimal interpretation and excessive staging aside this does not detract from the focus; the clothes and savage beauty of Alexander McQueen.

How did they do that?

This bemusement goes to the wonderfully hypnotic ghostly apparition of Kate Moss. Her ethereal image is suspended in a glass pyramid using the wonderfully inventive ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ technique - pioneered in the 19^th century. This highlights McQueen’s appreciation for the avant-garde. I did wonder how the registrar for the exhibition arranged to borrow this – was the image loaned or the entire technical prop. I also wondered if there were issues with copyright when using Kate Moss’s famous image and if this was leased rather than a straightforward loan given that it comprises of the object, the film and the projection. Overall, I’m amazed at the capabilities of the registrars who brought this wealth of objects together within the exhibition’s highly decorative and engaging set design. For me, the staging was just as important as the objects themselves in presenting the absolute tour de force that was Alexander McQueen.