Modern Art in the Usa Issues and Controversies of the 20th Century

IN RECENT YEARS There has been a serious reevaluation by fine art historians of the significant American contributions in the 1940s and 1950s to 20th-century art. The grim facts remain that an nearly pathological fright of communist infiltration in the first decade after Earth War 2 resulted in one of this land's most shameful endeavors to deny artists their basic liberty of expression.

The tardily Senator Joseph McCarthy never centered his attacks on either art or artists. Simply his colleagues in Congress oft equated all seemingly radical activities—specially creative ones—with political extremism. Nowhere is this view more evident than in the bitter attacks of George A. Dondero, the Republican representative from Michigan. Trained equally a lawyer, with no background in art or fine art criticism, Dondero launched a one-human being campaign to purge American fine art of what seemed to him to be a second communist forepart. His assaults were principally political, though he claimed on esthetic grounds all modern art was communist inspired because of the "depraved" and "destructive" nature of its forms. In a congressional speech on August 16, 1949, he explained the apply of the major 20th-century styles every bit vehicles for devastation:

Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder.
Futurism aims to destroy by the machine myth . . .
Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule.
Expressionism aims to destroy by aping the archaic and insane.
Abstractionism aims to destroy by the cosmos of brainstorms . . .
Surrealism aims to destroy by the deprival of reason. . . .

Dondero asserted that these styles or "isms" were un-American since they originated in Europe. That some American artists utilized these styles seemed ample proof to him that American avant-garde fine art was quickly becoming a communist-inspired menace. In an interview with Emily Genauer, and so a critic for the New York Earth Telegram but subsequently released by the newspaper because of Dondero'due south vague charges of her sympathies with left-wing organizations, Dondero summed up his views:

Modern art is Communistic because it is distorted and ugly, considering it does not glorify our beautiful country, our cheerful and smiling people, and our material progress. Fine art which does not glorify our cute land in plain, simple terms that everyone can understand breeds dissatisfaction. It is therefore opposed to our regime, and those who create and promote it are our enemies.

Dondero severely criticized American artists who refused to admit the above principle. In various speeches, he described them as "human termites," "germ-carrying vermin," and "international art thugs." He also ended that modern artists who advocatefreedom to experiment in a nontraditionalist way were charlatans considering 1) they really could not draw; 2) they were insane; iii) they were involved in a plot to make the suburbia nervous; and iv) they were committed to degrade their fine art for the purpose of communist propaganda. As examples of European artists who had imposed their anti-American ideas on American artists, he named, amid many others, Picasso, who had publicly acknowledged his communist leanings, Braque, Léger, Duchamp, Ernst, Matta, Miró, Dali, Chagall—all of whom, he claimed, were active weapons of the Kremlin.

Art museums and professional person art associations too became favorite targets for Dondero'southward assaults. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modernistic Art, The Fine art Institute of Chicago, the Fogg Museum, the Corcoran Museum, and the Virginia Museum were bitterly denounced for supporting exhibitions of modern art. The Artists' Equity Association and the American Federation of Arts, both artistically liberal organizations, were accused of communist leanings. Of the former, Dondero claimed to have discovered that "of the 77 officers, directors, and governors . . . have left-wing connections—and more than significant, 42 members [of the Communist Party]."

Information technology was apparent that Dondero had no concept of artistic action under whatsoever form of dictatorial government. In Genauer's interview with Dondero, it was pointed out to him how casual his speeches were to those of Lenin and Stalin. Similarly, Alfred Barr, Jr., himself the target of correct-wing attacks, devoted a long commodity to proving that modern art and communism or fascism were in straight opposition. Dondero's charges furthermore disregarded a United States Court ruling of 1946 (Hannegan five. Esquire, 327 U.S. 46) that "A requirement that literature or art should conform to a norm smacks of an ideology strange to our arrangement."

In Congress, Dondero's fellow representatives rarely rebuked his charges openly; indeed but a small handful of congressional individuals privately admitted their disagreement. Of the few whose opposition is a matter of public record, the criticism of Senator Jacob Javits is peculiarly noteworthy:

Criticism of the record of individuals as citizens or residents of the Usa and word of their political backgrounds and present beliefs is one matter, just an attempt to discredit all modernistic art forms is quite another and one of which notation should be taken and which should be deprecated, for my colleague's personal opinion of mod art is his privilege, simply my colleague's suggestion that it should all be lumped together and discredited—perchance suppressed—because he believes information technology is being used by some—even many—artists to infiltrate Communist ideas is a very dangerous utilise of the discussion "communism." The very point which distinguishes our form of free expression from communism is the fact that modern art can live and flourish here without land say-so or censorship and be accustomed by Americans who recollect well of it.

Similarly, many enlightened art editors and museum directors published objection to Dondero'southward attacks. Alfred Frankfurter of Fine art News summed up these counter protests with a typical rationale:

Only a corking, generous, muddling commonwealth like ours could afford the simultaneous paradox of a congressman who tries to attack Communism by demanding the very rules which Communists enforce wherever they are in ability, and a handful of artists who enroll idealistically in movements sympathetic to Soviet Russian federation while they go along painting pictures that would land them in jail nether a Communist government.

Many artists attacked by Dondero were vocal in their opposition. Perhaps Ben Shahn's comments were the most eloquent. He pointed out that what right-fly congressmen were trying to suppress, namely freedom of thought, was in essence the eye of artistic creation; to deny the creative person the right to paint or sculpt whatever themes and in whatever way he chooses was to deny his entire liberty.

Dondero's influence was greatest in ii spheres of artistic activity between 1946 and 1956: start, in the condemnation and suppression of fine art exhibitions which displayed modern fine art or art past suspected communists; 2nd, the censorship and attempted destruction of big-scale landscape decoration in prominent buildings. The targets were particularly government-sponsored work.

The start major show ridiculed by Dondero's straight instigation was a State Section-sponsored exhibition, organized in 1946 equally a goodwill gesture to the governments of Europe and Latin America. This exhibition, called "Advancing American Fine art," fully accorded with the standard practise of exhibiting American art away, a program originated nether Country Department auspices in 1938 as role of the Cultural Cooperation Program. The general purpose of this kind of sponsorship was defined by old Secretarial assistant of State William Benton before hearings of an appropriations subcommittee in 1948:

[It is to demonstrate that Americans who] are accused throughout the world of existence a materialistic, money-mad race, without interest in art and without appreciation of artists and music . . . have a side in our own personality as a race other than materialism and other than science and technology.

For "Advancing American Fine art," the State Section allotted about $49,000, and instructed Leroy Davidson to purchase paintings he considered outstanding and of lasting value. Within this narrow budget, Davidson purchased 79 works by 45 well-known artists of the flow. Included in the purchase were works by John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Philip Guston, Milton Avery, Loren Maclver, William Gropper, Abraham Rattner, Hugo Weber, Reginald Marsh, Stuart Davis, Jack Levine, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Adolph Gottlieb, Shahn, and others. From this collection, "Advancing American Art" was divided into two traveling exhibits, 40 paintings for Europe, the remainder for Latin America, each exhibition to bout for a five-year menstruation.

Soon subsequently the announcement of Davidson'south purchases, various groups protested the selection. The Baltimore American, a right-wing newspaper, was probably the first to print a formal protest in an editorial in October, 1946, on the basis that

The State Section, which officially is refusing to compromise with international Communism, is currently sponsoring an art exhibition which features the work of left-fly painters who are members of Red fascist organizations.

Thereafter the influential American Artists Professional League (mostly illustrators and commercial artists) sent a letter of complaint to the Fine art Assimilate. Dated November half-dozen, 1946, the letter of the alphabet claimed that the show was overwhelmingly i-sided toward modern fine art, thus precluding a off-white representation of the gimmicky art scene. Albert Reid, the national vice-president of the organization, also protested Davidson'southward choices because they did not in any sense represent styles "ethnic to our soil." This protest was the first of what has been described as "the cold war in the art earth."

Other organizations began to publicly voice their antagonism to the show. Disapprovals were published by such professional person societies as the Society of Illustrators, Allied Artists, and the Salmagundi (Watercolor) Club—all of which were equanimous primarily of commercial artists. The ground of protest was that the selection of modern examples of art seemed to reflect communist leanings, and that many of the painters involved were themselves associated with communist efforts.

Groups non directly associated with the art globe also bitterly attacked the exhibition. Especially fierce and abusive rebukes came from newspapers and magazines owned by William Randolph Hearst. Like Dondero, Hearst equated any form of artist radicalism with communism, and causeless that all of the work produced in a nontraditionalist manner was a bearded means of communist propaganda. His newspapers continually illustrated examples of the testify, peculiarly those by Davis, Marin, and Shahn, often using vilifying captions to misconstrue their content and value—an action not unlike that taken past the Nazi government for their exhibition of "degenerate" art in 1937.

Prominent members of the federal government joined in the controversy. In March, 1947, President Truman denounced a painting of a circus scene by Kuniyoshi, which, in Truman'south opinion, represented "a fat, semi-nude circus daughter." Truman added that "the artist must have stood off from the canvass and thrown paint at it . . . if that'southward fine art, I'm a Hottentot." Less than a month afterward, Time magazine reported that Secretary of Country George C. Marshall (the target of a McCarthy attack later in 1951), was incensed by the evidence's radicalism. Marshall, under whose aegis the show was originally organized, finally ordered "no more taxpayers' money for modernistic art."

Before long thereafter the State Section, caught in the heart of a politically embarrassing situation,ordered a halt to "Advancing American Fine art." This unprecedented action unfortunately established a precedent for dealing with exhibitions in which accused painters and sculptors were involved. It demonstrated the power and influence of Dondero's views.

The termination of the prove while it was still in Europe and Latin America aroused an enormous number of protests from intellectual circles. All were shocked that the State Department, who created and financially supported the exhibit in the starting time place, would go to such extremes to appease a pocket-size group politically on the right. Various art journals protested the cancellation, and in June and July respectively, the American Federation of Arts and many American museum directors voiced their opinions lamenting the State Department decision.

In 1948 the State Department decided rather than go on the paintings information technology would sell them at a public auction. Preference in the behest went to educational institutions and to World War Ii veterans. The results of the auction yielded a 95% loss on the original $49,000 investment. The terminal irony, it seems, came when the Hearst organization, whom the Art Assimilate blamed for exerting the most pressure on the federal agency, bought v of the auctioned pictures for the Los Angeles County Museum, a museum heavily endowed past Hearst's publications.

In 1951 and 1952 the condemnation of exhibitions dealing with modern art became intense. Ii major shows were under intense pressure level to be canceled or, at the very least, to withdraw works by artists suspected of associating with left-wing causes.

The Los Angeles Urban center Council sponsored a major exhibit in Griffith Park of the current trends in American art. By its very intention, the undertaking was at that time a courageous deed. Near immediately, protests were lodged by some commercial artists and illustrators, hardly represented in the evidence, claiming that the political background of some of the participants was questionable. As a result, a committee within the City Council was appointed to investigate these charges. Later on considerable debate, three members of the Edifice and Safety Committee headed by Harold Harby introduced a resolution stating that it was the official opinion of the committee that "ultramodern artists are unconsciously used as tools of the Kremlin . . . " and that in some cases, abstract paintings were actually secret maps of strategic Usa fortifications. As show of the claim of communist infiltration, Harby singled out ii works in the show. Rex Brandt, a local creative person, was severely criticized for incorporating "propaganda" in his 2nd-prize painting Offset Elevator of the Sea because he had included what appeared to be a hammer and sickle in the canvass of a send. Brandt, who for many years had been a boating enthusiast and the head designer for a major boating firm, explained that the department in question was nix more than a traditional arts and crafts insignia used to designate the Island Clipper. Nevertheless, Harby pressured Brandt into eliminating the objectionable symbol. Significant criticism was also directed against a sculpture past Bernard Rosenthal, Crucifixion. The Harby commission selected this work to demonstrate how communist-inspired art distorts traditional themes and subjects them to sacrilegious mockery. Harby described the work as a "travesty on religion because information technology made Jesus await like a frog," and lamented that he could not purchase it to insure its destruction.

Liberal factions of the art world protested these actions vigorously. Eastern museum officials jointly sent an official protestation to the Los Angeles Metropolis Council pointing out again that the same type of repression, under the guise of patriotic duty, was common in Nazi Germany, and, indeed, a reality in present-day Soviet Russia.

Notwithstanding, the issue of whether mod fine art was communist-inspired and whether avant-garde artists were hired past the Soviet regime to propagandize American secrets raged intensely in Los Angeles until January, 1952. Amid hearings, arguments, demonstrations, protests, and counter-protests, the Metropolis Quango ruled by an 11–3 vote that there was no substantial prove in back up of a vast communist plot inside the framework of modern art.

While these questions were being debated, a like situation occurred in New York in connection with "American Sculpture 1951," a large retrospective of recent sculpture organized past The Metropolitan Museum of Fine art. The bear witness was attacked past some unauthorized members of the bourgeois National Sculpture Lodge, who claimed, as before, that modern art was definitely linked to totalitarianism, and that information technology "endanger(s) the central freedom of our work and national life." Furthermore, Don de Lue, the head of the guild, firmly asserted that because the Metropolitan was guilty of supporting "aesthetic leftism," information technology was, therefore, advocating political leftism. Lloyd Goodrich, for a long time an outspoken foe of these charges, answered these accusations:

In a day when freedom of thought and expression are threatened by reactionary elements more than than ever in our recent history, this injection of false political issues into creative controversy and broadcasting them to an uninformed public is a despicable act.

The federal government itself contributed to some extent to the strong antimodern-fine art feelings. Although it did not actively back up any private group's views, the U.S. Authorities sympathized with the idea of communist influence in the art earth, and indeed maintained an official policy of censorship. In 1953, at the superlative of McCarthy'southward power, A.H. Berding, then a principal spokesman for the United states Data Bureau, delivered a speech before the American Federation of Arts stating that "our government should not sponsor examples of our creative energy which are non-representational." This statement was followed by an caption of the types of works which the USIA officially banned from circulating shows; examples included

works of avowed Communists, persons bedevilled of crimes involving a threat to the security of the United States or persons who publicly reject to answer questions of Congressional committees regarding connection with the Communist movement.

Despite these feelings, the USIA felt secure enough to lend support to an exhibition in connectedness with the Olympic Games of 1956. The exhibit, entitled "Sport in Fine art," was organized past the American Federation of Arts with partial funding from Sports Illustrated magazine. The plans for the show called for an extensive tour of major American cities, including Washington, D.C., Louisville, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, before the final showing in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the host city for the Olympics. The heavily publicized tour was well attended and met virtually no resistance to the inclusion of examples of modern fine art until the prove reached Dallas.

Upwardly to that time, Dallas denizen groups had had a long history of attempting to suppress the showing of advanced art in local museums. The traditional reason behind these acts was the supposed connectedness of modernism in the arts with communism, though in 1 case the reason was blatant anti-Semitism. Before examples of protests in Dallas included the "In Memoriam" prove, where it was charged that six of the 12 artists represented in the exhibit, had communist affiliations. As well severely criticized was "Sculpture in Silvery," another American Federation of Arts exhibit, because of the inclusion of a small work by William Zorach, believed to exist a communist.

A good deal of protest was also directed toward the Dallas Museum, where "Sport in Art" was to exist housed. On March 15, 1955, just a few months earlier the installation of the show, The Public Diplomacy Luncheon Society, a group of 400 women headed by Mrs. Florence Rodgers, a former fellow member of the Dallas Art Association, drafted a resolution declaring that the museum was placing too much emphasis on "all phases of futuristic, mod and not-objective" work, while neglecting many traditionalists "whose patriotism . . . has never been questioned." Specifically, the group demanded the removal of works by Hirsch, Gross, Davidson, Grosz, Picasso, Rivera, and Weber. In a release, the members of the order explained that the underlying principle behind these demands was that mod artists were used past the Kremlin as "instruments of destruction." As proof of this supposition the club quoted verbatim from Dondero'due south 1949 oral communication (though not acknowledged) of how modern art "aims to destroy." In April, the trustees of the Dallas Museum issued a respond:

that it was not Museum policy to knowingly acquire or exhibit piece of work of a person known by them to be a Communist or of Communist-front affiliations; that they had obtained the Chaser-General'due south list (of known Communists) and would be glad to be guided by it; . . . that they were reluctant to destroy work by artists accused of subversion.

By the time "Sport in Art" was scheduled to open, the Dallas patriotic groups were at fever pitch to stop the public showing of suspected artists. The main group to declare its opposition to the exhibit was the Dallas County Patriotic Quango, an arrangement composed of the American Legion, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and several other conservative groups. Under the directorship of Colonel Owsley, the Council demanded the removal of works by Zorach, Kuniyoshi, Kroll, and Shahn, as well every bit a public announcement by the Dallas Museum of a firm policy non to exhibit works by avowed communist supporters. A spokesman for the Quango clarified these demands:

We are non interested in esthetics or in traditional versus modern art. We are not interested in the excellence of the art or the story the art portrays. We are not fifty-fifty interested in the nationality, morals, education, religion, or good looks of the artist. Nosotros are interested only in seeing that the Dallas Art Clan refrains from showing works by Communist or Communist-front artists whose records of Communist-front end affiliations are public information obtained past Congressional committees.

The Council had non checked their charges; none of the artists denounced by Owsley was in fact listed as a subversive or a communist by the Subversive Activities Control Board. Zorach, Kuniyoshi, Kroll, and Shahn had been intensely investigated, though each of their files in Un-American Activities Committee records was prefaced by the following official statement: "This report should be construed every bit representing the results of an investigation by or findings of this Committee. It should be noted that the individual is not necessarily a Communist sympathizer . . . . "

On February xi, 1956, the Dallas Art Association announced that the Museum would ban no pictures, that it would stand firmly on the belief that there was no evidence to suggest communist infiltration. Despite this proclamation, the USIA felt that the charges against the show were meaning. Obviously fearing the fate of the 1946 State Department show, "Sport in Art" was canceled after its Dallas preview. Regime officials attempted to hide the fact that the protestation by the Quango was the sole reason for their decision.

Less than a month later, the USIA found itself in the midst of a similar controversy. Under its management the American Federation of Arts was once again called upon to organize a major retrospective of American fine art. Entitled "100 American Artists of the Twentieth Century," and scheduled for a tour away, it was claimed that among the artists involved ten were politically "unacceptable" and "pro-Communist." The 42 trustees of the Federation unanimously voted not to participate in the bear witness if whatsoever of the artists were barred from exhibiting. Again yielding to outside pressure, the USIA withdrew its support and canceled the tour—an action officially condemned on the Senate floor.

These controversies, all the same present despite McCarthy's censure in Congress two years earlier, resulted in an fifty-fifty tighter and more restrictive control on traveling exhibitions. The USIA announced shortly after the termination of "100 American Artists" that it would ban from such exhibits "American oil paintings dated after 1917"—the year of the Russian Revolution—considering the creative person might arouse suspicions of communist sympathies. In contrast to this policy, the American Federation of Arts pointed out a spoken language made past President Eisenhower on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of The Museum of Mod Fine art in New York:

Liberty of the Arts is a bones liberty, ane of the pillars of freedom in our land. . . . As long as artists are at liberty to experience with high personal intensity, as long equally our artists are gratuitous to create with sincerity and conviction, there will exist healthy controversy and progress in art.

Just as attempts were made to condemn art exhibitions, so were there efforts to conscience and destroy unmarried works of art, particularly large landscape commissions in public buildings, often because it was believed that the artist in question was using the public building as a forum for communist propaganda.^one At the New School for Social Research, 4 murals had been painted in 1930 by the well-known and much accused Mexican painter, José Clemente Orozco, with the commissioned field of study of "social revolutions astir in the world." The panels depicted the Mexican Revolution, then in full blossom, the nonviolent motion in India, the Chinese Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen, and the Russian Revolution, which included large portraits of Lenin and Stalin. In 1951, teachers and students akin began to harass school government over the Russian portion of the work, alleging the portraits and theme were offensive. The school responded by placing a plaque below the panel asserting that the view expressed did not reflect that of the school, only by the summer of 1953, protests called for the destruction of the entire piece of work. Dr. Hans Simons, president of the schoolhouse, compromised these demands by roofing the offensive section of the piece of work with a large curtain. This mensurate was explained as being only temporary while there was a "menses of great unease nigh Russia." The drape was afterwards altered and removed.

At approximately the same time, a controversy flared up over the work of Orozco's countryman, Diego Rivera. In 1922 he had been commissioned past Edsel Ford to pigment a mural in Detroit called The Historic period of Steel. In 1952, Eugene I. van Antwerp, the former mayor of the City, argued that the work contained a good deal of blatant communist propaganda, and represented the city's work force every bit "ugly and decadent." The Detroit Art Commission, however, refused to yield to the immense force per unit area exerted by him and his followers, and permitted the large mural to stand.ⁱⁱ

Although these examples of threatened murals were significant instances of the imposition of current political credo on art, no example was more celebrated or controversial than the committee awarded to Anton Refregier for the Rincon Annex Post Office in San Francisco. This instance serves as an apt and sometimes terrifying summary of the bug and fears and then clearly present during the commencement postwar decade.

Born in Moscow in 1905, Refregier left Russian federation for Paris in 1920 to farther his art studies. By 1923 he immigrated to the United States, and in 1933 became a naturalized citizen. In America he, along with other writers and artists, became associated with left-fly causes, especially during the Depression years. Along with his Russian heritage these alliances caused diverse groups to label him a communist supporter. Refregier was reputed to be one of the country'south best landscape painters. In 1941 he entered a national contest for a mural to depict the history of California in the Rincon Annex Post Office. Sponsored by the Federal Section of Fine Arts, 82 leading artists completed, with the final prize of $26,000 beingness awarded to Refregier. The commission required that the artist must

relate to the people in contemporary idiom the history of their own feel, not as pageant, but as the growth of the metropolis, a struggle of men against nature, and subsequently, the evolution of diverse inner tensions.

Refregier began piece of work on the 240-foot mural tardily in 1941, merely was interrupted by the state of war; the piece of work was not completed until 1949. During this fourth dimension at that place were 91 official conferences and inspections by officers of the Public Building Assistants, a stipulation of the contract. In final form, the work consisted of 27 panels showing aspects of California history; the titles are as follows: A California Indian Creates; Indians by the Golden Gate; Sir Francis Drake; Conquistadores Notice the Pacific; Monks Edifice the Missions; Preaching and Farming at Mission Dolores; Fort Ross—Russian Trade Post; Hardships of the Emigrant Trail; An Early Newspaper Function; Raising the Conduct Flag; Finding Gilded at Sutter's Mill; Miners Panning Aureate; Arrival by Ship; Torchlight Parade; Pioneers Receiving Postal service; Building the Railroad; Vigilante Days; Civil War Issues; Chinese Riots; San Francisco as a Cultural Eye; Convulsion and Fire of 1906; Reconstruction After the Fire; The Mooney Case; The Waterfront—1934; Edifice the Gold Gate Bridge; Shipyards during the War; War and Peace.

The panels were criticized for a diverseness of reasons. The last panel showing the birth of the United Nations, for example, included the founding fathers signing the announcement and establishing the peace-keeping organization. When submitted for blessing, the government disapproved of the sketch because of the "undignified way" in which Roosevelt had been fatigued. Refregier explained that he purposely selected a portrait of Roosevelt later the Yalta meetings, already aged and sick. The government saw this equally a slanderous portrait and censored it.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars lodged protests over the section showing the waterfront strike of 1934. Refregier had painted the scene vividly, relying on accounts of the strike also as on newspaper pictures, in order, he said, to gain greater historical accuracy. The Five.F.West. and the Hearst newspapers objected to one figure in the scene who quite plain wore a hat belonging to the 5.F.Westward. organization. The 5.F.W. insisted no member of their organization was involved in the strike, and that the artist'south inclusion of the hat unsaid that the system supported the strike. The newspaper pictures Refregier relied upon, when presented to the 5.F.W., conspicuously showed a member of their organisation nowadays in at least ane photograph. But the federal authorities, under strong pressure level, demanded the removal of the hat, which was painted out. Refregier was once more forced to change his designs in the section Torchlight Parade, depicting the winning of the viii-hour workday. In celebration of the issue, Refregier included a figure holding upward a sign which read "Ship Caulkers Union Won an eight-hour Day in 1865." The American Legion and the Sailors' Wedlock protested vigorously, and verbally abused the creative person while working on the department. Pickets were organized effectually this section in an attempt to physically prevent its completion. Refregier was forced to overpaint the sign.

Other arguments adult over the mural. In the panel depicting the establishment of the Spanish missions, protests arose nearly priests who, it was claimed, were represented as too fat and undignified. Refregier was forced to slenderize these figures. Objections were also raised most the portrayal of Francis Drake in armor. It was alleged that the painting, as a outcome of this detail, unsaid that state of war and aggressiveness played a large function in the history of the state. The inclusion of a child in a newspaper office was interpreted as signifying the use of kid labor. Disapproval was voiced over the use of a British flag in the Four Freedoms painting, a hammer and sickle in the United Nations panel, and fifty-fifty the inclusion of a red tie on one of the figures in the same section.

Finally, groups such every bit the American Legion, the 5.F.West., the D.A.R., Associated Farmers, the Young Democrats of San Francisco, the Sailors' Wedlock, and the Society of Western Artists chosen for the destruction of the entire piece of work. The American Legion and the V.F.W. declared the piece of work "subversive and definitely designed to spread Communistic propaganda." Others claimed in addition to the communist associations, that the work depicted California history in a distorted and abhorrent style.

Some prestigious members of Congress joined in the criticism. Richard Nixon, and so a representative from California, wrote a letter concerning not just the Refregier murals, but the subject area of "questionable" fine art in general. Dated July eighteen, 1949, the alphabetic character was addressed to C. E. Constitute, a past commissioner of an American Legion post in California:

I wish to cheers for your letter of the alphabet as to whether anything can exist done about the removal of Communist art in your Federal Building [the Rincon Annex Post Role] . . . I realize that some objectionable art, of a destructive nature, has been allowed to get into federal buildings in many parts of the country ... At such a time equally we may have a alter in the Assistants and in the majority of Congress, I believe a committee should make a thorough investigation of this type of art in government buildings with the view to obtaining removal of all that is found to be inconsistent with American ideals and principles. ³

The virtually outspoken critic was Representative Hubert Scudder of California, who emphatically supported destruction of the murals. He claimed that the artist was known to exist associated with 23 well-known communists, and condemned the mural because information technology was "artistically offensive and historically inaccurate . . . and cast a derogatory and improper reflection on the character of the pioneers and history of the great land of California." He besides mentioned that the figures were "ashen, soulless pioneers," involved in "sadistic scenes of riots, earthquakes, and strikes."

On March 5, 1953, Scudder introduced into Congress a joint resolution (JR 211) directing "the Administrator of General Services to remove the mural paintings from the lobby of the Rincon Annex Post Function Building in San Francisco." Equally was pointed out to Scudder fifty-fifty before submitting the resolution, the removal of the murals would accept insured their destruction.

Support for Scudder's nib came from a number of local and national conservative groups, every bit well as right-wing newspapers. Particularly emphatic in their desire to have the works destroyed were editorials in the San Francisco Argonaut, a newspaper Scudder later admitted was influential in his campaign.

An extraordinary number of responses—perhaps the most conclusive and unified of the decade—originated from private groups and societies to defeat the measure out. One listing of citizens opposing the resolution consisted of over 300 artists, historians, and representatives from museums, universities, and cultural groups. Among professional institutions opposing the resolution were the three major San Francisco museums, The Museum of Modern Art in. New York, the American Federation of Arts, and Artists' Equity. Strange art journals and the London Times published protests; one German art periodical said that "In a country which on paper—has the best constitution in the globe, today it is becoming hard to live, to think, and to act according to that constitution." The noted scientist Julian Huxley wrote to the artist:

I am much distressed nearly the Neb introduced by Congressman Scudder to authorize the removal of your murals in the Rincon Annex Post Role. This seems to me a highly injurious proposal. It is injurious because it would mean the destruction of what, to judge from my recollection of your sketches and from reproductions of the finished murals, is a remarkable piece of work of art, and an outstanding example of the growing tendency in your country to effort to exert political control over freedom of thought and expression, and to impair the liberty of the creative artist . . . The lamentable land of biology and philosophy in the U.s.a.Southward.R. shows what happens when artistic thought and expression is subjected to control on political or ideological grounds. Information technology is most unfortunate that, just when the free earth )south protesting against this course of tyranny in the Iron Curtain countries, deportment like that of Republican Scudder are trying to innovate a similar tyranny in your great state.

Scudder's resolution was given to the Committee on Public Works, chaired by Dondero, for hearings. On May one, 1953, the entire history of the mural was reviewed by Scudder before a subcommittee; each major point of criticism, along with documents and witnesses, was presented. The decision on whether there was enough bear witness to warrant the murals' destruction could not exist reached, and the resolution was shelved. The saving of Refregier's murals represented the near important defeat of the attempt by certain government individuals to control public creative endeavors.

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NOTES

1. The question of whether the owner of a mural ornamentation has the correct to destroy a completed work is an important i, and was the subject of a famous court instance in 1949 (Crimi v. Rutgers Presbyterian Church, 89 N. Y. Due south. 2d. 813, 194 Misc. 570, 19491. The example developed when Alfred Crimi sued the New York church over an unauthorized amending of his fresco, painted earlier in 1937. The New York Supreme Court ruled confronting the artist, and expressed the opinion that whatever creative person relinquishes his rights as soon equally the work has been sold. The New York Quango of Arts, Sciences, and Professions strongly objected to this ruling in a letter published in American Artist (May, 1952, p. 71):

We artists believe that at the completion and subsequently payment for monumental works of art, such works of art get the property of the people and that neither the government nor whatever individual private has the right to censor or destroy.

All the same, according to Barnett's Hollander's The International Law of Art for Lawyers, Collectors, and Artists (London, 1959, p. 711: "The lass protects the right of the creative person to the integrity of his piece of work. No change can be fabricated without his consent, whether past commutation, or improver such as roofing nudity.

2. It might be recalled that in 1933, Rivera's mural in Rockefeller Center. commissioned by john D. Rockefeller, Ir., was destroyed considering it had included a large portrait of Lenin.

3. Quoted in Chiliad. Sherman, "Dick Nixon: Art Commissar," Nation, January 10, 1953, p. 21. This seems to be in straight contradiction to Nixon'southward opinions when Vice-President. In 1955 Victor Arnautoff (the same artist who had been one of the judges in the commission awarded to Refregier) was forced to remove a lithograph of Nixon called "Dick McSmear" from an Art Festival in San Francisco. Nixon wired the. Art Commission for the city that the artist has "the right to limited a contrary stance" and that "the people should not exist denied full opportunity to hear or meet his expression of that stance." Run into Art News, October, 1955, p. seven.

— William Hauptman

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Source: https://www.artforum.com/print/197308/the-suppression-of-art-in-the-mccarthy-decade-37985