Charles Percy Parkhurst
| Charles Percy Parkhurst | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 23, 1913 Columbus, Ohio |
| Died | June 25, 2008 (aged 95) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
Williams College; Princeton University |
| Occupation | museum curator |
| Known for | Roberts Commission |
Charles Percy Parkhurst (January 23, 1913 – 25 June 2008) was an American museum curator best known for his work on the Roberts Commission, tracking down art looted during World War II.
Charles [Percy] Parkhurst was born in 1913 in Columbus, Ohio. He entered Oberlin College as a music major than later physics student, but after the science department prohibited him for conducting a personal research project, he transferred to Williams College. Deeply entranced by the art history courses of Karl Weston, Parkhurst pursued a dual degree in science and art history. Following his graduation in 1935, he spent the next two years building bridges and roads in Alaska before he returned to Oberlin for his master's degree, which he completed in 1938. Parkhurst went on to obtain his master’s in fine art at Princeton University in 1941 with his mentor, Clarence Ward’s urging as there was no higher level degree in art history at the time. At Princeton, Parkhurst heard lectures by scholars such as Erwin Panofsky, Charles Rufus Marey, George Rawley, and Albert M. Friend. He had a fellowship with Paul J. Sachs, a Byzantine expert, at Dumbarton Oaks, but never a superb linguist, Parkhurst felt that he was unqualified for this position and left to become a research assistant at the National Gallery of Art along with his fellow student Craig Hugh Smith. For most of World War II, Parkhurst served in the Navy as a gunnery officer in the Mediterranean. In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt established an art recovery division entitled the Roberts Commission after Justice Owen Roberts to repatriate art stolen by the Nazis. Parkhurst was part of the art recovery group and became deputy chief of Monuments, Fines Arts, and Archives in Germany. Immediately after the War, he was promoted to lieutenant where he served with around thirty others at the former national headquarters of the Nazi party in Munich. The group recovered more five million dollars worth of artifacts and artworks. Though Parkhurst was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by the French Government in 1948, he had been discharged from the Navy for signing the “Wiesbaden Manifesto.”
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