Robert Edsel Coming to UT Tyler

March 21, 2014

UT Tyler Office of Marketing and Communications

The Monuments Men Author to Speak at UT Tyler Cowan Center

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March 21, 2014

Media Contact:  Hannah Buchanan
Editor/Writer–Strategic Communications & Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.539.7196 (cell)

March 19, 2014

Media Contact: Beverley Golden
Director
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.566.7303 or 903.330.0495 (cell)

Robert Edsel, author of the novel The Monuments Men will be the final speaker of the 2013-14 Distinguished Lecture Series at The University of Texas at Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center, Susan Thomae-Morphew, Cowan Center executive director, announced.
Edsel will speak at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 25. Media sponsors are Suddenlink, CBS 19 and KTBB.

Tickets are $27, $22, and $17 and can be purchased at the UT Tyler Cowan Center box office by calling 903.566.7424 or online at www.cowancenter.org. Box office hours are 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“This is an excellent lecture for history buffs, especially World War II enthusiasts and arts historians and aficionados. Robert Edsel has devoted himself to the preservation of culture and the arts,” Thomae-Morphew said.

Edsel is the author of the non-fiction books Rescuing Da Vinci, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History and Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis, which was published last year.

All three books will be available for purchase at the lecture.

Co-producer of the documentary film, The Rape of Europa, Edsel is also founder and president of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art.

The motion picture The Monuments Men, directed by Academy®-Award winner George Clooney, is based on Edsel’s novel and was released earlier this year.

Formerly a nationally ranked tennis player, Edsel began a career in oil and gas exploration in 1981. His company grew to be the second most active driller of horizontal wells in the United States, and in 1995 he sold the company to Union Pacific Resources Company and moved his family to Europe.

In Florence, he developed a passion for art and architecture and became curious as to how so many of the monuments and great works of art survived the thefts and devastation of World War II.

That question evolved into an impassioned journey to tell the story of the Monuments Men, the unsung heroes who saved the world’s greatest art and cultural treasures for the benefit of civilization.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler features excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. More than 80 undergraduate and graduate degrees are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of more than 7,500 high-ability students. UT Tyler offers courses at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine as well as a location in Houston.