Happy Birthday, Rose Valland!

Today we celebrate the life and legacy of this quiet hero of the arts, whose courage and determination helped save thousands of cultural treasures looted by the Nazis during World War II.

Capt. Rose Valland (second, left) stands with fellow MFAA officers Lt. Theodore Heinrich (center) and Capt. Edith Standen (right), as they oversee the unloading of artworks for an exhibition at the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point. University of Regina Archives & Special Collections, Theodore Allen Heinrich fonds, 89-44, Box 92, File 1058, Wiesbaden: Preparation for an Exhibition - trucks unloading art works - unlabeled photos, [19-]

By a serendipitous find, we uncovered a previously unknown photograph of Rose Valland in the Theodore Allen Heinrich Papers, housed at the Archives and Special Collections of the University of Regina in Canada.

Captured at the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, the image offers a rare glimpse into the work of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives officers and the inter-Allied efforts to restitute stolen art in postwar Germany. Monuments Man Sergeant Kenneth Lindsay later wrote of Valland’s visit to Wiesbaden:

“One of the most moving experiences we had at Wiesbaden was a visit by Captain Rose Valland of Paris. She was a very quiet person — gentle. ‘Demure’ is a word that has been used. A real gentlewoman. She didn’t come from an aristocratic background, but she just had a certain amount of inner class to her. She had authenticity as a person. And that’s why we all loved her.”

Her courage and determination continue to inspire our work today.

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Honor Rose Valland’s legacy by reading her extraordinary firsthand account

The Monuments Men and Women Foundation proudly published the first-ever English translation of her 1961 memoir, The Art Front: The Defense of French Collections 1939–1945. Working at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Nazi-occupied Paris, Valland risked her life to secretly document the systematic looting of art taken from Jewish families—records that later proved vital to recovering tens of thousands of stolen works.

Enriched with over one hundred images and a new introduction by Foundation founder Robert M. Edsel, The Art Front offers a rare, first-person account of courage, resilience, and the fight to save culture during war.

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