New Haven Museum Guest Curator Laura A. Macaluso will lead a tour that includes the exhibit "Deane Keller: New Haven's Portrait Painter, Muralist and Monuments Man", as well as several works on display in downtown New Haven. The tour will begin with a walk-through of the exhibition, and continue on to the New Haven Free Public Library to view two WPA murals, “Personification of New Haven” and the “New Haven Green in the Nineteenth Century.” The next stop will be City Hall, where viewers will view mayoral portraits including two by Keller.
About the Tour
The exhibition and walking tour celebrate Keller’s life, his contributions to Connecticut culture, and the preservation of many of the world’s most iconic works of art. The exhibit runs through June 30, 2015. Please note that the tour will last for approximately 90 minutes, and include walking and stair climbing.
About the Artist
In 1943, as Nazi Germany laid waste to much of Western Europe, Monuments Men—a handful of soldiers whose job it was to protect cultural heritage during wartime—were dispatched to Europe, for the first time in history. Deane Keller, a painter and professor of art at Yale University, was among them.
“An Artist at War: Deane Keller, New Haven’s Monuments Man” comprises several of Deane Keller’s works, and photographic reproductions of material he collected while serving as a Monuments Man in Italy. The images include drawings and memorabilia, including one of Keller’s dog tags, his military identity card an Army uniform patch, Fascist propaganda posters, and photos documenting both the destruction and preservation of many treasured art masterpieces.
In 1943, President Roosevelt established a civilian commission to promote the formation of a Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) section of the military—the Monuments Men. Keller estimated driving 60,000 miles while leading preservation and restoration efforts that saved thousands of important works of European art. In Florence, for example, he supervised the return of 13 freight cars full of artwork—valued in the hundreds of millions—that had been stolen by the Germans. After the war, Keller returned to his family and teaching career in New Haven, and became a successful portrait painter.
Macaluso is a Ph.D. candidate in the humanities at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. She researches and writes about cultural heritage, art and identity and is finishing her dissertation, titled, "Art for the Elm City: Public Art in New Haven."