Art World Mourns Talent, Work Lost In World Trade Center Attacks

About $10 million worth of art was lost in the World Trade Center attacks, and it is a loss the people in the art world say can never be replaced.

"We know that there were a significant number of works by

Rodin in the Cantor collection

," says Michael Mezzatesta, director of

the Duke University Museum of Art

.

"Lives and art were lost, and these are two things that our society holds in the highest regard," Mezzatesta says. "Human life first and art as an expression of human life, and those are things that can never be replaced."

It may be years befoer the art world truly accounts for what was lost on Sept. 11,but chances are it will turn the tragedy into inspiration.

"You can knock down a buliding, but you can't knock down the people who believe in what takes place in that building and what it means to everybody," Mezzatesta says.

There were also 14 art studios in the World Trade Center, and at least one artist,38-year-old Michael Richards, a sculptor, died there as a result of the attack.