Rose Valland: the woman who became a spy to rescue masterpieces from the Nazis Here’s the story of Rose Valland, a modest unpaid art curator at the Parisian Jeu de Paume museum in 1934, who, through sheer resolve and an unparalleled devotion to French contemporary art, played a defining role in the recovery of 60,000 works of art that had been looted from the Jewish population during the German occupation.

At that time, the Jeu de Paume was a thoroughfare for stolen art, some of which was to be shipped to the "Führermuseum" Hitler had planned to create. An assiduous documenter and passionate scholar, Valland took careful notes about every object that arrived at the museum, building a secret, yet stunning archive with information about the artworks and details of their journeys.

For four years, during which time she was not only fired several times but also threatened with torture and death, Valland pretended she didn’t know German, painstakingly recorded everything she witnessed, and meticulously hid her vigorous disdain for the Nazis-turned-art connoisseurs, whose paths she anxiously crossed each day at the museum. She kept sending her undercover reports to her "partner in crime" Jacques Jaujard, director of the Louvre, in a dangerous joint mission that can be said to have truly “saved some of the beauty of the world”.

Carmen, member support manager The Collector: ‘Rose Valland: Art historian turned spy to save art from Nazis’ (reading time: 10 minutes)
Black lives don’t just matter; they are profoundly beautiful Here is one more thing that can disappear from view when black people are forced into endless cycles of repetitive grief – the beauty of our lives. When I think about how much I love being a black African woman, my gratitude is for the gift of being able to feel some sort of connection to billions of people all over the world, with skin hued dark as midnight to light as mother of pearl. I’m so lucky to be an insider to our musicality, our joy, our ability to bedazzle survival with laughter, prayer and poetry.

For me, to be black is to get lost on a cold evening in Buenos Aires, and be taken in for a cup of maté by a dreadlocked man with a sun-bright smile. To be able to dance to the same afrobeats songs with strangers in Oslo, Entebbe, Cape Town, or California. To have a cherished memory of kissing a fellow daughter of Osun, she Brazilian and me Nigerian, at Stonewall Inn in New York, with the approving whoops of sisters from God-knows-which parts of the world washing over us. It’s a beautiful gift, black life. I know it because I’m living one.

OluTimehin, Othering correspondent The Atlantic: ‘Racism is terrible. Blackness is not’ (reading time: nine minutes)
Offices are reopening, but do you have to go back? In 1822, after working in the one of the world’s first offices for a brief time, Charles Lamb wrote that he wished at least for "a few years between the grave and the desk". He glumly concluded that no matter what, "they are the same". Now that lockdowns are being lifted here in Europe, I’ve heard quite a few friends express similar feelings ... mostly using dramatic references to death, come to think of it.

If so many of us hate offices so much, where did they come from? Why are they still around? And will they be around much longer in a post-pandemic world in which many office workers have become too comfortable in sweatpants? This article by Catherine Nixey is anything but grey and drab as it answers these questions.

Shaun, copy editor 1843: ‘The dead of the office’ (reading time: 12 minutes)

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