George Clooney's continued support for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

It started a long time ago, George Clooney's support for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

You have to love this cause as it is one that has raged on for over two centuries and has often, if not forever it would seem, tested all right peoples thinking: "Janet Suzman emphasised that all like minded, profound people, hope to see the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin and currently housed in the British Museum's Room 18, re-joining their surviving halves in the Parthenon Gallery of the superlative Acropolis Museum." 

I will never forget arranging for Janet Suzman to go to the studio to speak to John Pienaar for Pienaar’s Politics on BBC Radio 5 live 16 February 2014. 

On Saturday 9 February 2014, while promoting his new movie 'The Monuments Men' – based on the second world war platoon which rescued and returned thousands of artworks stolen by the Nazis - George Clooney was asked by a Greek journalist if he thought the Parthenon marbles deserved to be in Greece. From that moment the media world went boom as it reflected and questioned once again, why the surviving Parthenon sculptures, mainly divided between two great museums- the British Museum in London and the Acropolis Museum in Athens- continue to be fragmented. How much nicer would it be if they could be seen as a whole, displayed in the Acropolis Museum?

Then George referred to the Parthenon as Pantheon, but it was in the excitement of the moment and indeed on John Pienaar's  programme, Janet said: "I'll tell you why I'm pro the marbles going back to Greece, its because that building sitting on top of the Acropolis, the Parthenon - George is not wrong in calling it a Pantheon - it is a sort of Pantheon, a kind of model of what we value in the west."

And in 2021 George again spoke about these sculptures, he had launched another film,'The Midnight Sky'.

"There are many historically significant objects that should be returned,” George Clooney stated in a communication with Janet Suzman, by then the chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM). “However, none is as important as the Parthenon Marbles, which must be returned to their original owner.”

And today, 18 May 2025,  in Ta Nea and To Vima, George Clooney added: “I love Greece and I’m doing what I can to help return the Parthenon Marbles to where they belong. The Marbles will return to Greece, I know they will.”

We share that optimism and hope, thank you George for your support.