Pictures at an Exhibition, a reading and presentation by Sara Houghteling October 20, 2009

The story of a son's quest to recover his family's lost masterpieces after World War II, Pictures at an Exhibition begins in the late 1930s when the Berenzon Gallery in Paris is thriving with both Picasso and Matisse under contract. When war breaks out, the gallery, like many art collections at the time, is completely vandalized. Houghteling's novel draws from real-life stories of France's preeminent art-dealing families and the forgotten biography of Rose Valland, a curator at the Jeu de Paume and the only Frenchwoman to work as a double agent in the Nazis' looted art stronghold.

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