This week on Fieldstone Common our featured guest is Laura Macaulso, curator of “An Artist at War: Deane Keller, New Haven’s Monuments Man,” an exhibit at the New Haven Museum in New Haven, Connecticut. This week’s discussion is a little different because we are not speaking about a particular book. Instead we are talking with Laura about Deane Keller and all she leaned about him researching for this exhibit.

Bio – Laura Macaluso

Laura A. Macaluso was trained in art history, museums and cultural heritage and spent her 20s and 30s studying, working and traveling. Now, she is getting down to some writing, including a new book on portraits as a sideline to her dissertation on city identity and public art.

Laura remembers three important places in her travels: Florence, where she earned a Master’s degree in art history, Edinburgh, where she was married, and southern Africa, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. She plans to visit Egypt when she earns her PhD from Salve Regina University.

She is a recent transplant to central Virginia, where her husband Jeffrey Nichols directs Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home, Poplar Forest (www.poplarforest.org). They enjoy visiting historic sites and parks, but mostly sitting by the fire with two cats and a dog.

Publication Info

Title: Connecticut Explored Magazine

Publication Date: Winter 2014

Article: “New Haven’s Monuments Man,” by Laura A. Macaluso

The Interview

The Monuments Men were a real unit during WWII tasked with saving the great art of Europe from Hitler and the Nazis. The Monuments Men became better known after a book of the same title by Robert Edsel and then further by the recent movie starring George Clooney. There were three Monuments Men from Connecticut, one of them, Yale Professor Deane Keller is currently being featured (December 2014-May 2015) in an exhibit at the New Haven Museum in New Haven, Connecticut. In this interview Laura Macaluso and I discuss Deane Keller’s life, his talents and his success as a Monument’s Man and how he became beloved by the people of Italy for protecting their heritage.

Links mentioned during the interview:

• New Haven Museum, New Haven, CT


• The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert Edsel


• Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis by Robert Edsel


• The Monuments Men starring George Clooney (DVD)

Prize Winner

A one-year subscription to Connecticut Explored Magazine is given out to the Fieldstone Common audience courtesy of Connecticut Explored.

The winner is:

• To be announced next week [leave comment below to be entered to win]

Congratulations to our winner and thanks to Connecticut Explored Magazine for their generosity in donating the subscription!

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https://www.fieldstonecommon.com/monuments-man-deane-keller

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