“It’s not a very complicated story,” says a source close to the Met. “Tom was a curator. He was plucked out to run a big job—not just director but director and C.E.O. He forged an agenda with the board. He had some management issues. They together made all these decisions to get ahead on digital. Tom wasn’t on his own. They together decided to invest in modern and contemporary. The place is politically, totally insane. Al

“How the collection had ended up in Cornelius Gurlitt’s Munich apartment is a tragic saga, which begins in 1892 with the publication of the physician and social critic Max Nordau’s book Entartung (Degeneration).”