I was looking through a year-old copy of Art in America, and noticed a tiny little obituary for Charles Parkhurst hidden in the back of the magazine. I was sad that a man so important to 20th century art history didn’t merit a larger mention.
Parkhurst was an art historian who held many distinguished positions throughout his long lifetime: including numerous curatorships, director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, assistant director of the National Gallery, taught at Princeton, Oberlin, Williams, and Smith. Perhaps his most important contribution to the art world was as one of the “Monument Men” during World War Two; a group that helped save great works of art, and architecture, from destruction from bombing and Nazi looting. From the Monuments Men Foundation website:
The “Monuments Men” were a group of approximately 345 men and women from thirteen nations who comprised the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section during World War II. Many were museum directors, curators, art historians, and educators. Together they worked to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from the destruction of World War II. In the last year of the war, they tracked, located, and ultimately returned more than 5 million artistic and cultural items stolen by Hitler and the Nazis. Their role in preserving cultural treasures was without precedent.
Their efforts were indeed monumental: one feat involved secretly moving the entire contents of the Louvre, and hiding them in a salt mine, protecting the artworks from Nazi looting during the occupation of France. For his part, the French government awarded Parkhurst the Legion of Honor, Chevalier, an honor rarely bestowed on a non-French citizen.
The work of the Monuments Men was recently part of the excellent documentary, The Rape of Europa. The documentary includes interviews with Parkhurst.
A better obituary for Parkhurst in the New York Times described his undiminished curiousity and fascination with art history:
A few years ago, while looking at Giotto’s frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Mr. Parkhurst became intrigued by the possible influence of the theater on Giotto’s art. … the idea gripped him, and he pursued it doggedly. Well into his 90s, he was still chasing after art.
Parkhurst died at his home in Amherst, MA, June 25, 2008.
Two collaborative art projects by 
