Art Hero: Rose Valland

Unassuming in appearance, quiet in demeanor, unremarkable, and timid—these terms have been used to describe Rose Valland. In fact, these tepid adjectives describe the French woman who valiantly stood up to the Nazis for what she cared about most: art.

Rose Valland at Jeu de Paulme

Hitler declared war on modern art, and the work of virtually every prominent Western artist was branded as ‘degenerate‘. Artists were forced to flee and were forbidden to create any further ‘unsuitable‘ art. Dealers and collectors—many of them Jewish—saw their collections confiscated, while museums were stripped of their treasures. The looted art was sent to hidden storage depots, and Jewish families were sent to concentration camps as their paintings and other possessions were forcibly removed from their homes.

The room of the martyrs at Jeu de Paume during Nazi occupation

In 1940, the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris became the headquarters of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)—essentially the Nazi looting organization. The fate of the paintings and other artworks stolen from French private collectors and dealers was decided in a room that became known as 'the room of the martyrs'. At the top of the agenda was selecting art for Hitler’s planned Führermuseum in Linz, Austria. Nazi Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering, who visited the museum frequently, selected works for Hitler’s museum while simultaneously expanding his own private collection. Whatever was deemed unworthy or could not be sold to fund the war was destroyed.

Enter Rose Valland, whose extensive art background had allowed her to work at the Jeu de Paume Museum. When the ERR took over, the Director of the French National Museums, Jacques Jaujard, instructed Valland to stay on and spy on their illicit operations—and she did exactly that. Unaware that she understood German, the occupying forces allowed this unassuming woman to stay, seeing her as no threat. Imagine pretending not to understand the language spoken around you for four years. Valland listened, observed, and kept meticulous notes on every artwork that passed through those doors. Although she was dismissed several times, she always managed to return to her post. On a few occasions, she came dangerously close to being discovered, even facing accusations of stealing artworks and passing information to the enemy. Yet, nothing could stop or intimidate her.

Valland was unable to stop the destruction of art. One day, a selection of portraits depicting Jewish subjects was singled out. They were ridiculed, slashed with knives, and taken outside to be burned, along with canvases by Miró, Klee, Picasso, and others. Valland was powerless to interfere.

Rose Valland as Captain Vallard

At the end of the war, she worked closely with the Monuments Men. The information she had gathered proved invaluable, serving as a map to locate multiple depots of looted art. Most notable among these was Neuschwanstein Castle in the Bavarian Alps, where more than twenty thousand works of art stolen from French private collectors and dealers were stored. She spent the rest of her life working on the restitution of these pieces to their original owners or, in many cases, to their heirs. The numbers are staggering: Valland’s meticulous documentation tracked the fate of more than 20,000 artworks at the Jeu de Paume. Later, as a captain in the French First Army working alongside the Monuments Men, she played a major role in the eventual recovery of approximately 60,000 works of art.   

I recently visited the Jewish Museum in New York to see the exhibition Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. The paintings on display had passed through the "room of the martyrs" at the Jeu de Paume. When we look at them today, we remember the woman who risked her life to save them, proving what can be accomplished even in the darkest of times.  

Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar by Henri Matisse

Daisies by Henri Matisse

Before fleeing to the United States, gallerist Paul Rosenberg stored most of his collection in a bank vault in Bordeaux. The Nazis confiscated the works, and these two paintings were sent to the Jeu de Paume. Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar was claimed by Hermann Goering for his personal collection, while Daisies remained in storage. After the war, both paintings were returned to Rosenberg and subsequently sold.

Bather and Rocks by Paul Cézanne

Bather and Rocks was confiscated from the French Jewish art collector Alphonse Kann. This monumental nude was sent to the Jeu de Paume in preparation for transport to a Nazi storage depot in Czechoslovakia. However, the transport train was intercepted and stopped by Free French soldiers, who successfully rescued the artwork. Following the war, the painting was returned to its rightful owner.

Group of Characters by Pablo Picasso

Group of Characters by Pablo Picasso was also confiscated from Alphonse Kann and was loaded onto the same transport train as Cézanne's Bather and Rocks. This train was intercepted and its cargo rescued by French Resistance fighters on August 1, 1944. The painting was eventually restituted to the heirs of the original owner in 1947.   

Composition by Fédor Löwenstein

Composition was one of more than twenty works Fédor Löwenstein attempted to ship out of France to a gallery in the United States as he prepared to flee Paris for the south of France. Because he was Jewish and a modernist, his life was in peril, and his work was classified as degenerate by the Nazis. Unfortunately, the shipment was seized by German forces at the Port of Bordeaux and sent to the Jeu de Paume in Paris, where Composition was slated for destruction. Somehow, the painting survived. After the war, it was stored and forgotten in the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, housed at the Centre Pompidou. In September 2025, following a long investigation, this work was finally restituted to Löwenstein’s rightful heirs.   

You may also be interested in Art under Nazism and Why Art Matters which was posted in this blog The Painter’s Eye on April 11, 2018