RARA-AVIS: back to willeford

Mark Sullivan (ANONYMEINC@webtv.net)
Sat, 11 Jul 1998 23:38:06 -0400 (EDT) I'm enjoying re-reading Burnt Orange Heresy after several years. Just a
note to show how well Willeford knew the art world he was writing about.
Figueras's suggestion to Cassidy that he collect the entirety of
Hitler's "Degenerate Art" exhibition was taken up later by the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. Burnt Orange was
published in 1971; twenty years later those institutions put together
"Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany" a
recreation, to the best of their ability (several paintings are no
more), of Hitler's original exhibition. (I'm not saying these museums
were in any way influenced by Willeford, just that he obviously knew his
art history to recognize the importance of that collection, as well as
being able to create that great fake Duchamp biography story Debierue
tells.)

Mark

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