Robert M. Edsel

Robert Morse Edsel (born December 28, 1956) is an American businessman and author. He has written three non-fiction books - Rescuing Da Vinci (2006), Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (2007); and Saving Italy (2013) - chronicling the recovery of artwork stolen by Nazi Germany during World War II. A film based on his book, The Monuments Men, directed by and starring Academy Award winner George Clooney, was released in February 2014.

Edsel is the co-producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary film, The Rape of Europa (2007). He is also founder and Chairman of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, which received the 2007 National Humanities Medal under President George W. Bush. The foundation has donated four albums of photographic evidence of the Third Reich's theft of art treasures to the United States National Archives.

Robert M. Edsel was born in 1956, in Oak Park, Illinois, and raised in Dallas, Texas. He is the son of Norma Louise (née Morse), a housewife, and Alpha Ray Edsel, a stockbroker. Edsel was formerly a nationally ranked tennis player.

In 1981, he began his business career in oil and gas exploration. His company, Gemini Exploration, pioneered the use of horizontal drilling technology throughout the early 1990s. Gemini Exploration grew from a company of eight employees to almost 100. By 1995, Gemini had become the second most active driller of horizontal wells in the United States. Edsel sold the company’s assets to Union Pacific Resources Company, and the following year, he moved to Europe with his family.

In the late 1990s, while living in Florence, Edsel began to think about the methods and planning used to keep art out of the hands of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Following a divorce in 2000, Edsel moved to New York City, where he began a serious effort to learn about and understand the issue.

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