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    Pictures at an Exhibition
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    Pictures at an Exhibition
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    Pictures at an Exhibition
    Audiobook8 hours

    Pictures at an Exhibition

    Written by Sara Houghteling

    Narrated by Mark Bramhall

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Set in a Paris darkened by World War II, Sara Houghteling's sweeping and sensuous debut novel tells the story of a son's quest to recover his family's lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation.

    Born to an art dealer and his pianist wife, Max Berenzon is forbidden from entering the family business for reasons he cannot understand. He reluctantly attends medical school, reserving his true passion for his father's beautiful and brilliant gallery assistant, Rose Clément. When Paris falls to the Nazis, the Berenzons survive in hiding. They return in 1944 to find that their priceless collection has vanished. Madly driven to recover his father's paintings, Max navigates a torn city of corrupt art dealers, black marketers, Résistants, and collaborators. His quest will reveal the tragic disappearance of his closest friend, the heroism of his lost love, and the truth behind a devastating family secret.

    Written with tense drama and a historian's eye for detail, Houghteling's novel draws on the real-life stories of France's preeminent art-dealing familes and the forgotten biography of the only French woman to work as a double agent inside the Nazis' looted art stronghold.


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 17, 2009
    ISBN9780739382134
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Pictures at an Exhibition

    3.5/5

    79 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This historical fiction is set in France just before and after World War II involving artwork stolen by the Nazis. A good story with unlikeable characters.
    • 3/5
      Fascinating story about the art world in Paris just prior to, during and following the invasion by the Germans. Once again, I'm wishing there were 1/2 stars so I could give this 3.5 stars. Much of the story deals with real people and many other characters are based on real characters. The relationship between Daniel and his son, Max, Berenzen is very strained and it is not until nearly the end of the book before Max and the reader get a clearer picture of one of the underlying reasons why. The last half of the book chronicles Max's efforts to retrieve artworks stolen during the war for his father, in an effort to please his father but he never seems to be able to do that. Max also spends most of the book trying to woo Rose, Daniel's assistant, who was crucial in tracking and saving the artwork of Paris as the Germans loot the city. The relationships and characters drive the book, although I frequently found it difficult to understand their motives and actions.
    • 4/5
      Max Berenzon is the son of an art dealer father and a clasical pianist mother. Coming of age during WWII in Paris is difficult at best, but Max takes on the additional task of trying to recover Nazi confiscated art belonging to his family. This book touches on many sensitive subjects surrounding Nazi occupation, but does focus on the thousands of priceless art works lost to the world, possibly forever. It caught my attention because the two art pieces in Max's quest are a Morisot and a Manet ... two impressionists on my personal list of "faves". Enjoyed this book very much.
    • 3/5
      Pictures at an Exhibition is the story of Max Berenzon and his relation with his father and his father's magnificent art collection. The family is Jewish and the story takes place in the 1930's and 1940 's in Paris. The Berenzon Gallery was one of the five premier art galleries in Paris with a concentration on post Impressionist art, primarily the exclusive shows of Picasso and Matisse. Although Max loves the art world, his father feels Max lacks the all important undefined "instinct" to be successful. He hires an assistant Rose Clement who does have that illusive quality. Max promptly falls in love with her.The core of the book is what happens to the Berenzon collection during the Nazi occupation of Paris. When the war is over Max tries to trace down the missing pictures, removed by the Nazis and their French associates. He discovers a pit of greed and corruption where art dealers bought the "decadent" modern art for one tenth of its worth and got rich selling the paintings on the black market or in Switzerland during the war and to rich Americans after the war. Occupying soldiers supposed to protect the looted treasures try to sell Max two of his family's paintings. He finds a Manet and tries to claim it only to have the dealer disappear. Rose's story runs parallel to Max's. Turning herself from a beauty to a prim and plain assistant curator, she becomes one of the custodians at the Jeu de Paume. The museum has become a sorting place for the confiscated art of Paris. During the day she shows Nazi collectors like Goering around the museum so he can "buy" art for himself and gifts for Hitler. At night, she records the details of every object and keeps a secret journal of where each piece is dispatched. Her mission after the war is to locate each missing painting and restore it to its owner if possible.The novel is a fascinating look at this period in history. Especially interesting to me was Rose's story. Unfortunately, less interesting was Max's story. It becomes muddled about two thirds of the way through with Max's search for his missing friend and an unnecessary mystery of a missing sister. An interesting novel that could have been so much more.
    • 4/5
      Max Berenzon grew up in Paris between the wars as the privileged only son of a well-respected Jewish art dealer. Max's only ambition was to follow in his father's footsteps. However, his father doubted his instinct and ability to succeed as an art dealer and tried to steer him in a different direction. Max is both jealous of and attracted to Rose, a young Louvre employee who has become the latest of his father's live-in assistants. When it appeared that France would fall to the Nazis, the Berenzon's stored their collection for safe keeping and went into hiding. Upon their return to Paris, they discover that their entire collection has been looted. Max becomes fixated on the single goal of finding his father's lost paintings. Will Rose be an ally or a foe?This is unusual for Holocaust novels in that it skips the war years almost entirely. The focus of the novel is on what was lost during the war. I was surprised by the intensity of the outrage I felt as Max scoured Paris after the war looking for traces of the lost collection. Non-Jewish art dealers had profited from trade in the art works left behind by Jews who had been deported or had gone into hiding. The survival and return of the former Jewish owners was at best inconvenient. Because Max was not in Paris during the Nazi occupation, he had to hear about it from other characters who had lived through and witnessed the events. These long conversational information dumps diluted the novel's emotional impact for me.This novel may appeal to readers with an interest in art and/or art history, World War II and the Holocaust, Paris, and father/son relationships.
    • 3/5
      The subject matter addressed in the Pictures at an Exhibition (what happened to art during the Nazi occupation of France during WWII) was fascinating and based on fact. However I had some trouble following the story line of young Max and his journey in and out of hiding to recover his art dealer father's lost collection. The afterward explains that many of Houghteling's characters (Rose and various art dealers) are based on actual people. I would have liked to have seen more pictures of the art work, galleries and museums mentioned in the book.
    • 1/5
      I read a variety of books of all types each year. I like a book that has a good flow of words,a beginning a good middle and end. This book was quite awkward to read on many levels. It was a birthday gift from my daughter. If it were not for that I would have evoked the Reader's Bill Of Rights and given up after about page 50. The French seem to be portrayed in novels as very unemoting,secretive people. I am thiking of all the characters in The World At Night another book that takes place during WW II in France. This book is filled with unlikable,weird people. There was next to zero character development with two of the main characters,Rose and Bertrand. We know so little of Max and his relationship with this Bertrand that it is hard for us to understand his constant search for him after paris is liberated. It took 3/4 of the book to understand that Rose was one of those strange woman loving objects more than people. Whew...so glad this book is done!
    • 3/5
      Max Berenzon is the son of one of the great art dealers in Paris before the war and a mother who is an accomplished pianist. As a child, Max's father, Daniel, spent many hours walking Max around the gallery, memorizing the details of the Manets, Picassos, Cezannes etc that filled the walls before they were sold. Daniel's photographic mind easily remembered all the details of paintings long gone, but decided Max should pursue a career in medicine instead. Max is surprised he will not automatically inherit the gallery. An intern from the Louvre, Rose Clement becomes his father's right hand. Max is slowly, surely, trying to fail at med school when WWII hits hard. The little family hides in the country in Le Puy and Rose remains at her post at the Louvre. After the war, Max's father has lost interest in recovering his lost art. With some assistance from Rose, Max attempts to find his father's lifeworks, taken by the Germans during the war.
    • 4/5
      Sara Houghteling successfully recreates the Paris art world of World War II in "Pictures at an Exhibition." As seen through the eyes and perceptions of Max Berenzon, the son of a successful gallery owner, it is a grim, gray world. The story seems to work on two levels: the Berenzon family, their lack of emotional communication, their family secrets, and the role of art in their lives - and then the larger picture - Paris under the Occupation and the fate of its Jews. It is the second aspect that is the most compelling. Max's personal story is so understated, so emotionless, that it was difficult for this reader to be too involved. Briefly, Max is a son unsure of his father's love; he is pursuing a medical degree when he'd rather work in his father's gallery; he is in love with his father's assistant and possible mistress Rose; he is unfocused and seems to careen blindly through life. Then, Paris is occupied by the Germans and the Jewish Berenzons go into hiding. Those war years aren't the focus of the story, so it picks up again when the Berenzon pere and fil return to find the gallery an empty shell and their paintings gone. Max's search for the missing works gives the reader a view of just how difficult it was for those whose possessions had been `liberated' to reclaim them. But it is the depiction of postwar Paris that is more compelling. Far more interesting than Max's story is the recounting of the art works themselves: the lengths the French went to protect these valuable possessions and the greed that flouishes even today as the descendants of the rightful owners are unable to claim their possessions. The recounting of the secret transport of 'The Wreck of the Medusa' and the 'Victory of Samothrace' were, for me, the highpoints of the novel. The strong points of `Pictures at an Exhibition' are the author's prose style and the fascinating story of the `missing' art works. However, the human side of the story is far less riveting.
    • 4/5
      This debut novel was a wonderfully written story about love and art and loss that somehow failed to make an emotional connection. Though I was pulled into the narrative, I found myself caring more about the art than the personal lives of the characters. Perhaps the author was trying to convey the coldness of war, but I found myself feeling isolated from the characters. There was great potential in this novel, and the writing was exquisite, but in the end I just wasn't invested enough in it to consider it a must-read.
    • 4/5
      Pictures at an Exhibition is the story of the Berenzon family, as told through the eyes of son Max. Max's father Daniel is one of the premiere art dealers in Paris. He sells the works of their next-door neighbor, Pablo Picasso, and has an exclusive contract with Henri Matisse. Works by Sisley, Degas, Lautrec, Manet, and too many others to name pass through the Berenzon Gallery. They are a wealthy and respected family. And while they're not religious in the least, like many of the art dealers of the time, they are Jewish.Max was raised surrounded by great works of art. Every evening, his father would drill him on memorizing each work from exhibitions of the past. Max has always assumed that he would one day inherit the gallery. However, when Max is a teenager, Daniel informs him that he can't "with good conscience" pass the gallery down to him. Daniel doesn't believe Max has the right abilities and temperament to fill the role. It would be an understatement to say that Max has some "daddy issues."So, as the story gets going in 1939, nineteen-year-old Max is studying to be a doctor. His father has just taken on the latest in a series of apprentices. Max typically resents these interlopers, but Rose Clément is different. She is beautiful, independent, awe-inspiring. It is love at first sight. It's not long before a relationship of sorts begins between Max and Rose. But no matter how many ways Max shows his love for her, Rose clings to her independence. Their romance, the business of the gallery, and everything else are put on hold with the outbreak of the war. Rose is working furiously with the staff at the Louvre to safeguard the artworks. Daniel puts 250 of his most valuable paintings in the vault at the Chase Bank. More are hidden in a secret basement room in the gallery. Max and his parents flee the city and hide in the countryside. They stay away from Paris for several years, and we don't see them again until their return in 1944. Someone else is living in their house. The gallery is a wreck, and all the artwork has been found and stolen. Likewise, the art that was in Chase Bank is gone. Despite the fact that both Max and Daniel were born in France, they have been stripped of their citizenship. They have few rights, and almost no recourse for the injustices that have befallen their family. Their wealth is gone. Everything they had is gone.Daniel decides to cut his losses and return to his wife in the country. Max, perhaps in an attempt to finally win his father's respect, stays in a wholly changed Paris to seek out their artwork through channels of varying legitimacy. It is Max's quest to find Rose, the art, and most of all himself that encompass the latter two thirds of the novel. It shouldn't come as a shock to any reader that it's a sad and difficult story.I had a really conflicted response to this novel. In part, I'm sure, it was because of my own Jewish heritage. I'm no more religious than the characters in this book, but seriously, has anyone ever written a novel where the Jews lived happily ever after? It just gets depressing after a while. So, it would be accurate to say I had an emotional response to the book.