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The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland
by Michelle Young
A riveting and stylish saga set in Paris during World War II, The Art Spy uncovers how an unlikely heroine infiltrated the Nazi leadership to save the cultural legacy of the West.
On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a woman of quiet daring, found herself in a desperate position. From the windows of her beloved Jeu de Paume museum, where she had worked and ultimately spied, she could see the battle to liberate Paris thundering around her. The Jeu de Paume, co-opted by Nazi leadership, was now the Germans' final line of defense. Would the museum curator be killed before she could tell the truth—a story that would mean nothing less than saving humanity's cultural inheritance?
Based on troves of previously undiscovered documents, The Art Spy chronicles the brave actions of the key Resistance spy in the heart of the Nazi's art looting headquarters in the French capital. A veritable female Monuments Man, Valland has, until now, been written out of the annals, despite bearing witness to history's largest art theft. While Hitler was amassing stolen art for his future Führermuseum, Valland, his undercover adversary, secretly worked to stop him.
At every stage of World War II, Valland was front and center. She came face to face with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, passed crucial information to the Resistance network, put herself deliberately in harm's way to protect the museum and her staff, and faced death during the last hours of Liberation Day. She also singlehandedly provided information to stop the last train of looted artworks—bearing paintings by Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Braque, Degas, Modigliani, and Toulouse-Lautrec—from leaving France.
Vivid and atmospheric, The Art Spy moves from the glittering days of pre-War Paris, home to geniuses of modern culture, including Picasso, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Le Corbusier, and Frida Kahlo, through the tension-riddled cities and resorts of Europe on the eve of war, to the harrowing years of the Nazi occupation of France when brave people such as Valland risked everything to fight monstrous evil.
In the spirit of Hidden Figures, with the sweeping narrative of The Rape of Europa and the depth of The Resistance Quartet, The Art Spy is an extraordinary tale of a female hero whose courage and tenacity in a time of violence and terror is an inspiration for us all.
"Journalist Young recaps the exploits of French Resistance hero Rose Valland in this thrilling saga...Readers will relish this riveting tale of a clever war hero playing the long game against bumbling fascists." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The story of Valland's courage and dedication to art and justice is compelling and inspiring...Ideal for fans of espionage and strong narrative nonfiction that reads like a compelling novel." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Young recounts Valland's brilliance, courage, and sangfroid in enthralling detail as she chronicles her daring work to save the museum's treasures and her shrewd spying for the Resistance... like Valland's zealous rescue of stolen masterpieces, Young vibrantly restores a hidden treasure to the pantheon of WWII heroes." —Booklist (starred review)
"Vivid popular history spotlighting a neglected heroine." —Kirkus Reviews
"In her masterful biography of one of the greatest unknown heroines of World War II, Michelle Young brings the French art historian Rose Valland to brilliant life and finally gives her the credit she is due. Daily risking her life during the war to document the Nazis' looting of tens of thousands of French works of art, the quiet, unassuming Valland then helped locate and return the vast majority of those treasures after the conflict. A gripping account of Valland's passionate one-woman fight to preserve France's artistic heritage, The Art Spy is a must-read." —Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of Citizens of London and Madame Fourcade's Secret War
"After four years of all-out research in France and America using many unpublished documents, Michelle Young finally allows us to bring Rose Valland to life and discover the important role played by her partner Joyce Heer, during fifty years of their life together. After thirty years, the goal set by the Association 'La Mémoire de Rose Valland' is finally achieved through The Art Spy: to promote Rose Valland's work and bring her out of the shadows." —Association La Mémoire de Rose Valland
This information about The Art Spy was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michelle Young is an award-winning journalist, author, and professor. She is a graduate of Harvard College in the History of Art and Architecture and holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is a Professor of Architecture. She is the founder of the publication Untapped New York. She lives in New York City.
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