Après-Midi Recap

Restoring Art to Its Rightful Owners…Some Surprising Obstacles

Laurel made it her mission to uncover the true story behind the Picasso painting that once hung on her grandfather’s dining room wall, one that became part of the victims of the Holocaust and ended up hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Her tail is fascinating, involving thousands of hours of research and a lot of legal pursuit. She held us spellbound!

Here’s the story in the New York Times.

A Franco-American writer who grew up in Arizona, Laurel is the author of Sorbonne Confidential (Fayard 2007), and Les Rêves Barbares du Professeur Collie (Fayard 2009) and the editor of Paris Writers News.

Laurel’s work currently focuses on the art world and the Holocaust. She explores how linked open data, natural language processing, network analysis and the digital tools and techniques of investigative data journalism can be used to identify patterns in false provenances in Nazi-looted art and duress sales. In 2016, after twelve years of research, she filed a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the restitution of Picasso’s The Actor.

Zuckerman previously worked in corporate IT projects as a superuser, project manager and solutions expert specializing in SAP supply chain systems. She is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Laurel’s favorite literary hero is Moses Herzog, who writes letters he never sends, often to dead people. Instead of letters, she writes her blog. Topics include education, ecology, books, and mysteries of France, of which there are many. And Paris Writers News.

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