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saw there. He saw paintings by van Gogh and Renoir, and sculpture by Picasso. He saw drawings by Matisse. Some of the works were famous enough to have a place in the history of Modern art, but all of the works— every one of them—was famous because it had a place in political history as well, for every piece of art in the San Francisco exhibit of Degenerate art had once been stolen by an official member of a government.
    The government was Nazi, the country was Germany, and the year was 1937, the year when Adolf Hitler erased the line between politics and art.
    That was the summer when Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, appointed a committee and gave itthe authority to confiscate (read: steal ) all those works of Modern art that it (read: Hitler ) did not find acceptable. The committee stole over sixteen thousand works.
    Six hundred and fifty of those stolen works were exhibited in an old warehouse in Munich in a show called Entartete “Kunst.” Entartete means “degenerate,” and Kunst means “art”; the quotation marks around the word “art” were deliberate. The purpose of the Degenerate “Art” exhibit in Munich was to educate the German people about the evils of Modern art.
    The Degenerate art in San Francisco that Peter saw was a collection of one hundred and fifty of the original six hundred and fifty works that had been displayed in Germany in 1937, and it was that exhibit that opened Peter’s eyes to how a dictator can condemn something that is new and different simply by labeling it evil.
    The exhibit of Degenerate art traveled from San Francisco to Chicago and Washington, D.C. Record numbers attended, and everywhere it went, it raised the same questions: What gives a government the right to steal art? Who gives a government the right to dictate what people are permitted to like? How did it happen? Could it happen again? Should taste be a matter for a government to decide?
    The original sponsors of the Degenerate “Art” exhibit wanted the dialogue to continue, so they made arrangements to divide up the hundred and fifty works into five sets of thirty and to send one set to each of five regional art centers throughout the country. People who did not have ready access to a major museum would then have an opportunity to see works of Modern art that changed the course of art and politics.
    The regional art centers were to be chosen competitively.
    Peter would later say that he had little hope of success when he wrote the application for Sheboygan.
    When he got word that his art center had been chosen, Peter felt as if he had won the the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the Powerball lottery. He was hailed as a town hero. (Thank you. Thank you very much.)
    And now, on the very day he was back at work, he opened the envelope that told him that works by Picasso, Renoir, Matisse, and other major, major artists would be coming to town. (Applause! Applause!)

W HEN SHE HAD TO LIQUIDATE a large estate such as Mrs. Zender’s, Mrs. Wilcox took pictures of every room—in whole and in parts—before she disassembled it. She did this to account for everything in her sale and to help make her lists. Most often Mrs. Wilcox’s clients were heirs to the place she was liquidating and other than the profit to be made from the objects sold, the heirs had no interest in the pictures she took.
    But Mrs. Zender was different. Except for her frequent visits to the refrigerator and her occasional joining in the conversation between William and Amedeo, Mrs. Zender had no interest in the kitchen. But she insisted on being in every one of the before pictures in each of the other rooms.
    Amedeo and William were often called upon to help with the mise-en-scènes.
    Preparations for the dining room photos were elaborate.
    Mrs. Zender selected an ostentatious array of china, crystal, and silver, all of which Amedeo and William were required to wash and polish.