North American Families in the Guise of Columbus. “The Splendor of Dresden” and the People of San Francisco

Abstract

A report from the East German (German Democratic Republic) daily newspaper Berliner Zeitung on an exhibition of major works from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery) in Dresden, which was shown in 1978–79 at three major US galleries, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco. It was one of the most tangible results of the Helsinki Accords of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (1973–75). The text reads like a travelogue, reporting on the author’s trip to San Francisco and the impact of the exhibition on the American audience and its understanding of the German Democratic Republic.

Keywords:

• German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
• Helsinki Accords
• Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden
• San Francisco
• Ian McKibbin White

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Editor’s note: a reference to the 1973 Italian-made film Massacre in Rome, starring Richard Burton as the Rome Gestapo chief Herbert Kappler, responsible for the massacre committed in Ardeatine Caves in Rome on March 24, 1944.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Klaus Wilczynski

Translated from German by Richard George Elliot Originally published as “Familien in Nordamerika als Kolumbus. ‘Dresdens Pracht’ und San Franziskos Bürger,” in Berliner Zeitung, No. 109, 1979, 9.