Making A Killing 50 min • United Kingdom, 1998 Anne Webber, Producer Christopher Spencer, Director

The critically-acclaimed documentary thriller Making A Killing, helped put the subject of Nazi-confiscated art onto the international agenda. Despite personal assurances from Himmler, Freidrich and Louise Gutmann are taken from Holland to Theresienstadt and murdered, their priceless art collection seized. Fifty years later, their grandsons discover that the family’s Degas is owned by prominent Chicago collector, Daniel Searle, who goes to court rather than relinquish the artwork. Most striking when providing glimpses of those who, turning a blind eye to war, swept up the " degenerate art" being sold off by the Nazis to finance their Final Solution, Making A Killing pulls no punches in its examination of the conspiracy of silence perpetuated by the art world. A film with particular resonance in Seattle, as efforts by the Rosenberg family to reclaim Matisse’s "Odalisque" from the Seattle Art Museum remain unresolved.

Invited guests: Director Anne Webber and Art Detective Willi Korte