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'A Partnership of Equals': Kennedy, the European

Union and the End of Abstract Expressionism as an
Atlanticist Aesthetic

Nancy Jachec

To cite this article: Nancy Jachec (2002) 'A Partnership of Equals': Kennedy, the European Union
and the End of Abstract Expressionism as an Atlanticist Aesthetic, Third Text, 16:2, 105-118, DOI:
10.1080/09528820210138263

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 Third Text, Vol. 16, Issue 2, 2002, 105-118

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‘A Partnership of Equals’:
11
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Kennedy, the European Union
13
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and the End of Abstract
15
16
Expressionism as an
17
18
Atlanticist Aesthetic
19
1. See, for example, Max
20 Kozloff, ‘American Nancy Jachec
21 Painting during the Cold
War’ and Eva Cockcroft,
22
‘Abstract Expressionism,
23 Weapon of the Cold
24 War’, in Pollock and
After, The Critical
25 Debate, ed. Francis
26 Frascina, Harper & Row, Since the publication of Irving Sandler’s The Triumph of American
27 London, 1985 and Painting in 1970, which treated the international success of American
Frances Stonor Saunders,
28 Who Paid the Piper? The
Abstract Expressionism as the inevitable result of its formal superiority,
29 CIA and the Cultural much of the scholarship on this movement has been preoccupied with
30 Cold War, Granta, the political underpinnings of its success. While it is clear that American
London, 1999, each of
31 which considers the direct
Abstract Expressionism was assisted by the United States government in
32 intervention of covert order to attain international recognition in the visual arts, the questions
33 government agencies in of why it was chosen for promotion in Western Europe between 1958
the circulation of
34 Abstract Expressionism in and 1961, and, importantly, why its status was undermined in 1962,
35 Europe; as well as Serge have not been fully investigated.1 This essay will show that Abstract
36 Guilbaut’s How New Expressionism was deliberately selected by the State Department as the
York Stole the Idea of
37 Modern Art, University style best suited for achieving highly specific foreign policy objectives in
38 of Chicago Press, that region, its decline likewise marking a deliberate change between the
Chicago, 1983, and Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations from Europe-first to global
39
Nancy Jachec’s The
40 Philosophy and Politics of policy priorities. Beginning with Eisenhower’s diverse, multi-agency
41 Abstract Expressionism, approach to cultural exchanges in Western Europe through the State
Cambridge University
42 Press, New York, 2000,
Department, the United States Information Agency (USIA) and the CIA,
43 which consider Abstract it will be argued that a more focused cultural programme developed
44 Expressionism as a through their interplay by the mid-1950s. This programme would
disseminator of American
45 new liberal ideology.
identify and promote Abstract Expressionism as best suited for
46 establishing an Atlanticist, or Euro-American aesthetic to win over
2. Donald Sassoon, One
47 Hundred Years of
Western Europe’s unaligned leftist intelligentsia, deemed by the State
48 Socialism, The West Department and centrist factions of European government alike as
49 European Left in the advocates of European neutralism.2 Believing the unaligned left was
Twentieth Century, I B
50 Tauris, London, 1996, pp second only to the communists in posing a threat to European
51 209–10. unification and the Atlantic Alliance, we shall see that the State
52
Third Text ISSN 0952-8822 print/ISSN 1475-5297 online © 2002 Kala Press/Black Umbrella
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DOI: 10.1080/09528820210138263
 106

1 Department came to rely on Abstract Expressionism as a means of

2 persuading this free-floating electorate to support the centre left by
3 cultural means. It did this by working through unattributed –
4 clandestinely funded – exhibitions, ostensibly supported by the private
5 sector. This was in order to sidestep the congressional debates over
6 government sponsorship of artists with past communist affiliations, and
7 to highlight capitalist democracy’s ability to sustain a world-class
8 culture without help from the public sector.
9 Kennedy’s administration, in contrast, favoured the development of
10 American relations with non-Western countries. Accordingly, a new,
11 specifically American culture was encouraged with Abstract
12 Expressionism redefined as the progenitor of other, distinctly American
13 avant-gardes, and an emphasis placed on European cultural autonomy.
3. See Arthur M Schlesinger,
14 Jr, One Thousand Days,
In large part a pragmatic response to President de Gaulle’s repeated
15 John F Kennedy in the rejections of an Atlanticist European Union in the early 1960s, it was
16 White House, Andre also indicative of Kennedy’s desire to work alongside an essentially
Deutsch, London, 1965,
17 pp 319–320, p 717; and
Christian Democratic European union to further liberal democratic
18 Theodore C Sorensen, interests there and in non-Western countries.3 The adoption of this
19 Kennedy, Hodder & ‘partnership of equals’ approach to Euro-American relations was
Stoughton, London, 1965,
20 pp 559–61 for first-hand
responsible for the reconceptualisation of American Abstract
21 accounts of Kennedy’s Expressionism as a wholly American practice.
22 foreign policy platform. Historians agree that Eisenhower’s was an ‘institutionalised
23 4. David B Capitanchik, The presidency’, based on the delegation of decision making to a pyramidal
24 Eisenhower Presidency bureaucracy of White House staff, committees and departments.4 Thus,
and American Foreign
25 Policy, Routledge & his administration often appeared sluggish in responding to foreign
26 Kegan Paul, London, policy issues.5 Eisenhower also, however, reformed the protocol
1969, pp 22–7, p 30. determining the autonomy of the CIA, and its freedom to undertake
27
28 5. William Preston, Jr, covert operations was fully unleashed in 1954.6 His approach to fine
Edward S Herman, and
29 Herbert I Schiller, Hope
arts policy was marked by these contrasting approaches to governance.
30 and Folly, the United Decisions concerning attributed exhibitions were conducted across
31 States and UNESCO, agencies and issued in middle-of-the-road agreements regarding
1945–1985, University of
32 Minnesota Press,
stylistic preferences; the covert sector was actively constructing a much
33 Minneapolis, 1989, pp more focused propaganda campaign. Eisenhower was aware of the
34 75–9. need for a fully coordinated programme for the visual arts, and
35 6. Saki Dockrill, measures for one were already under way when he entered office. His
36 Eisenhower’s New-Look predecessor, Harry Truman, had called for a review from the Advisory
National Security Policy,
37 1953–61, Macmillan, Commission on Educational Exchange on the role of fine arts in
38 London, 1996, pp 150–1. Euro–American relations, and the Commission made two important
39 7. ‘Office Memorandum observations about the circumstances dictating the government’s use of
40 from Russell L Riley to the fine arts at the time. First, the government agencies concerned had
Mr Francis J Colligan, little confidence in their own understanding of fine art, and second,
41
February 15, 1954’, p 1;
42 Records Relating to the there was little chance of overturning the long-standing hostility
43 Evaluation of Cultural Congress had toward funding cultural programmes.7 The Commission
Programs and to Staff
44 Visits Overseas,
thus proposed the establishment of a Committee on Fine Arts, which
45 1952–1960; General was approved in July 1952.8 The resultant Advisory Committee on
46 Records of the Arts (ACA) was charged with taking stock of State Department
Department of State,
47 National Archives and
programmes over the past two years. This included assessing the
48 Records Administration, effectiveness of the programmes, ascertaining how other ‘friendly
49 College Park, Maryland governments’, as well as the Soviets, were using the fine arts as
NACP.
50 propaganda, and determining the events in which the State Department
51 8. Ibid. should officially participate, and which should be entrusted to the
52 9. Ibid, pp 5–6. private sector.9
 107

1 The establishment of the ACA, however, did not automatically

2 permit the development of a unified propaganda campaign, and the
3 launching of the unattributed exhibitions through the private sector
4 was in part brought on by the ACA’s failure to develop one. Its task
5 was complicated, moreover, by the National Security Council’s (NSC)
6 establishment of the USIA in 1953 expressly for the improvement of
10. Gary O Larson, The
7 Reluctant Patron, The the nation’s cultural image abroad.10 Organised around country
8 United States missions, it took its operational directives directly from the President
9 Government and the Arts via the NSC, and received its foreign policy directives from the State
1945–1965, University of
10 Pennsylvania Press, Department. 11 And while it focused on the promotion of European
11 Philadelphia, 1983, p integration in France and Italy, which had the largest communist and
110.
12 unaligned leftist groups in Western Europe,12 the USIA was headed at
13 11. US Congress, Hearing that time by Theodore Streibert.13 Remembered as a ‘tough,
before the Committee on
14 Foreign Affairs House of
organisationally minded administrator less interested in matters of
15 Representatives, Eighty- information policy than in “getting more transmitters in the air”’, his
16 fourth Congress, first organisation tended to represent the United States through mass
session, 15 February
17 1955, Washington, DC,
media. 14 This was partly for financial reasons – Congress was unwilling
18 US Government Printing to fund fine arts exhibitions, and this was characteristic of its attitude
19 Office, 1955, p 8. into the 1960s, prompting Kennedy to establish and fund his own
20 12. For neutralism in Italy, government’s arts committees through executive order.15 Yet there were
21 see Spencer Di Scala, also more prosaic reasons for this emphasis on mass culture. The USIA
Renewing Italian
22 Socialism, Nenni to Craxi maintained at that time that the mass arts were the only ones that were
23 Oxford University Press, both ‘truly representative’ of the American people and comprehensible
24 Oxford, 1988, pp to their audiences. It therefore turned a blind eye to art that was ‘non-
110–14; in France, see
25 Sue Ellen M. Charlton, representational to the point of obscurity’.16
26 The French Left and Not all government representations of the visual arts abroad during
European Integration, Eisenhower’s presidency, however, would be subject to congressional
27
Denver, University of
28 Denver, 1972, p 16, p 20, scrutiny. The CIA at this time was being given increasing power and
29 pp 33–4. autonomy, and as early as February 1954 the USIA–State Department
30 13. Robert E Elder, The clashed with it over cultural policy for Europe. While it was clear to the
31 Information Machine, government as a whole that culture was the new battleground on
The USIA and American
32 Foreign Policy, Syracuse
which the struggle for Western Europe was taking place, the CIA was
33 University Press, New highly critical of the USIA, deeming it unable to respond to regional
34 York, 1968, pp 1–2, p needs.17 Noting that ‘there is a recognition that many US objectives are
10.
35 mutually applicable to two or more European countries’ and that they
36 14. Ibid., p 39. ‘have common interests which it is to our advantage to forward’,18 the
37 15. August Heckscher, ‘Notes promotion of a sympathetic culture, in the view of the CIA, was now
38 on Meeting to Discuss crucial. For the Truman and Eisenhower administrations had always
White House Policy on
39 Advisory Committee on assumed that European unification would include a friendly
40 the Arts’, 12 May 1962; partnership with the United States with which it had ‘shared
August Heckscher Papers, interests’.19 By this time, however, government agencies across the
41 John F Kennedy Library,
42 Boston, MA. JFK board were increasingly worried by the spread of neutralist sentiments,
43 Library; ‘Schlesinger, particularly amongst the unaligned leftist intelligentsia in France and
‘Memorandum to
44 President Kennedy’, 30
Italy, who were powerful shapers of public opinion.20 To make matters
45 January 1963. Heckscher worse, Soviet investment in cultural programmes to Western Europe
46 Papers. was accelerating at this time.21
47 16. Andrew Berding, ‘The Only one month after the CIA attacked the USIA for its
48 Arts as Our ineffectiveness, Eisenhower approved NSC 5412/1, which ‘confirmed
Ambassador’, Art Digest,
49 28:4, 15 November 1953, the unassailable position of the CIA in conducting covert operations’.22
50 pp 4–5. Immediately, it launched an initiative for European unity, working
51 17. ‘Office Memorandum…’, primarily through the European Movement.23 This organisation,
52 op. cit., p 1. headed by the foreign secretaries from Britain, France, Italy and West
 108
1 Germany, ardently supported European unification and the Atlantic
18. Operations Coordinating
2 Board OCB,
3 ‘Memorandum for the
4 Record, Meeting of the
Working Group for D-38
5 and Related Matters,
6 January 21, 1954’, 1,
7 CIA Documents, Library
of Congress, Washington
8 DC, LoC.
9 One such committee was the Operations Coordinating Board
19. Pascaline Winand,
10 Eisenhower, Kennedy,
11 and the United States of
12 Europe, St Martin’s Press,
New York, 1993, p 78, p
13 81.
14 20. See IRI Intelligence
15 Bulletin, ‘First National
16 Congress of the Italian
Peace Movement’,
17 December 29, 1955;
18 Office of Research,
19 Intelligence Summaries;
IRI Intelligence Summary,
20 ‘Communist Propaganda
21 Activities in Western
22 Europe during 1955’, 1
March 1956, p 10; Office
23 of Research Intelligence
24 Bulletins, Memorandums
25 and Summaries, 1954–56,
Records of the USIA;
26 NACP.
27
21. Jachec, op. cit., p 161, p
28 187; Larson, op. cit., p
29 110.
30 22. Dockrill, op. cit., pp
31 150–1.
32 23. OCB, ‘Memorandum to
33 the Executive Officer,
OCB, March 31, 1954’, p
34 3; CIA Documents, LoC.
35 See also IRI Intelligence
36 Summary, ‘Communist
Propaganda Activities in
37 Western Europe during
38 1955, March 1, 1956’, p
39 10; Office of Research
Intelligence Bulletins,
40 Memorandums and
41 Summaries, 1954–1956,
Records of the USIA;
42
NACP.
43
24. European Movement,
44
Europe Unite!, London,
45 1951, p 1.
46 25. OCB, ‘Memorandum,
47 March 31, 1954’, op. cit.,
48 p 10.
49 26. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones,
50 The CIA and American
Democracy, London,
51 Yale University Press,
52 1989, p 92.
Pact, concentrating on France and Italy, where the numbers of
communists and hard leftists posed a serious threat to integration.24
The CIA would rely heavily on the private sector in promoting
integration, urging that its projects be carried out ‘through the
European Movement or other non-governmental (European)
organizations’ centrally coordinated through an interagency
committee.25
(OCB), established in March 1953 to oversee covert operations.26 It
was, however, answerable to the NSC, and in order to get round this,
the ‘invisible’ Special Group of the OCB was established in March
1955.27 Its core members were the secretaries of Defense and State, the
director of the CIA, and Nelson Rockefeller, who was the president’s
representative and chair of the board.28 In July a working group issued
a circular underlining their shared commitment to supporting
European integration ‘through indigenous European outlets insofar as
possible’, and that ‘there should be minimum attribution of such
propaganda to the United States’.29 Shortly after the Special Group was
founded, the effort to launch Abstract Expressionism as an Atlanticist
aesthetic commenced. For, already a special adviser to the president,
and a member of the NSC, Rockefeller was also a financial and
administrative pillar of the museum his mother helped to found, the
Museum of Modern Art, New York.30 Thus, Rockefeller was well
placed to employ the museum’s International Program (IP) to
undertake fine art exchanges.
The relationship between the federal government and the Museum
of Modern Art was certainly encouraged by the Rockefeller brothers,
who from early on fostered links between them. For example, David
Rockefeller was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,
described by Frances Stonor Saunders as ‘a private think-tank made up
of America’s corporate and social elite, which acted as a kind of
shadow foreign policy-making unit’.31 Initially preoccupied with
political, economic and financial policy, in 1952 it began to
incorporate cultural matters into its remit, and on the advice of David
Rockefeller, René d’Harnoncourt, director of the Museum of Modern
Art, New York, joined the Council in December.32 Five months earlier,
the IP had been set up with funds provided by the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund. Initially an in-house organisation, it would soon form the
nucleus of the International Council at MoMA (IC), which was
launched the following year.33 While the records for the meetings of the
IC are largely unavailable to researchers, we know that it was a hand-
picked group of individuals, and substantially underwritten by the
USIA, according to Porter McCray.34 McCray, we shall see shortly, was
the politically well-connected director of the IP at this time and the
most strident supporter of Abstract Expressionism abroad. He would
curate Jackson Pollock 1912–1956 and The New American Painting,
the exhibitions that launched Abstract Expressionism’s international
career as an Atlanticist art form.
Significantly, some of the early core members of the IC, which
included André Malraux, Herbert Read, Willem Sandberg and Lionello
Venturi, would also have provided a good opportunity for ascertaining
 109

1 what aspects of contemporary American art would appeal to its target

2 European audience, as they were largely centre to centre-left
3 intellectuals, who were all at least receptive to, if not advocates of,
4 gesture painting.35 Malraux had been an ardent anti-fascist in the
5 27. Ibid.; Dockrill, op. cit., p 1930s and member of the Resistance. Yet he committed himself to
155.
6 Gaullism in 1945 and, a member of de Gaulle’s first cabinet in 1947,
7 28. Jeffreys-Jones, op. cit., p he would become de Gaulle’s Minister of Culture when the latter
92.
8 returned to power in 1958.36 Yet, unlike de Gaulle, he remained
9 29. CIA, ‘Progress Report on receptive to working with the Americans.37 Read was a pacifist
Activities of the OCB
10 Cultural Presentation anarchist.38 Sandberg, director of the Stedlijk Museum in Amsterdam,
11 Committee, July 13, had already been identified by MoMA in 1952 as a far leftist, which
1955’, LoC.
12 had little bearing on his taste in art. Excepting his appreciation of the
13 30. Stonor Saunders, Who work of Jacob Lawrence, he generally promoted European abstract art,
Paid the Piper?, p 144, p
14 261; Helen M Franc,
including that of the current generation.39 And Venturi, a well-known
15 ‘The Early Years of the champion of gesture painting,40 was far left enough politically to
16 International Program encounter difficulty obtaining a visa to enter the United States in 1955
and Council’, ed.
17 Museum of Modern Art,
in order to deliver a series of lectures at Columbia University.41
18 New York, The Museum Yet there were other, overtly government-sponsored initiatives
19 of Modern Art at Mid- involving MoMA that enabled them to ascertain what avant-garde
Century, At Home and
20 Abroad, Museum of
practices would be best received by their target audience. One of these
21 Modern Art, New York, was the People-to-People Program’s Fine Art Committee. Established
22 1994, p 110. in Washington DC on 18 February 1957, its members included both
23 31. Stonor Saunders, Who Porter McCray of the Department of Circulating Exhibitions at
24 Paid the Piper?, p 137. MoMA, and William Burden, president of MoMA, and Julius
25 32. ‘Letter from George S Fleischmann, described by Stonor Saunders as ‘the most significant
Franklin, Jr, to René front man of the CIA’s cultural campaigns in Europe’.42 This
26 d’Harnoncourt,
27 December 4, 1952’, and committee would prove to be the international springboard for
28 ‘Letter from René Abstract Expressionism. For MoMA had been busy interpreting
d’Harnoncourt to David
29 Rockefeller, December
European responses to its previous exhibitions to determine which
30 18, 1952’, René artists had the desired political effects. Thus in May 1956 the IC
31 d’Harnoncourt Papers, circulated its assessments of Twelve American Painters and Sculptors
Archives of American Art
32 AAA, roll 2924.
(1952–53) and Modern Art in the United States (1954–55), both of
33 which had been pluralist, including works that ranged from the social
33. Helen Franc, op. cit., pp
34 109–10, pp 120–2. realism of John Kane to the gestural abstraction of Jackson Pollock.
35 The assessments showed that Pollock was by far the most provocative.
34. At a meeting of the ACA,
36 McCray noted the The centre and the centre left saw his work as emblematic of the
37 underwriting of the Western condition at mid-century, taking American Abstract
38 European shows by the Expressionism to embody the same political values as Europe’s own
USIA. ‘Second Meeting of
39 the ACA, 9.30 a.m.’, 13 indigenous gesture painting. The hard left, on the other hand, rejected
40 May 1958, New York it as a complete and irredeemable departure from rational thought
City; General Records of and the betterment of the human condition promised in dialectical
41 the ACA 1951–1962,
42 General Records of the theory.43 As we shall see next, this early indicator of Abstract
43 Department of State, Expressionism as an Atlanticist aesthetic was soon reinforced by
NACP.
44 findings from the People-to-People Program, out of which the
45 35. The International Council Abstract Expressionist shows Jackson Pollock 1912–1956 and The
of The Museum of
46 Modern Art, The First
New American Painting developed.
47 Forty Years, New York, Although his career was primarily in museums, Porter McCray had
48 Museum of Modern Art, long been a quasi-political figure. He met Nelson Rockefeller while
1993, p 127.
49 training in architecture and the fine arts at Yale, and what followed
50 36. Geoffrey T Harris, André was a long, intertwining career in art and politics.44 Moving between
Malraux, A Reassessment,
51 London, Macmillan, the Section of the Cultural Relations Division of the Office of the
52 1996, p 1, p 7, pp 10–16. Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and the Inter-American
 110

1 Program at the National Gallery in Washington DC between 1941 and

2 1944, he became director of Circulating Exhibitions at MoMA New
3 York in 1947 following 14 months of military service.45 His post at
4 MoMA, which he held from June 1947 to October 1961, was
5 interrupted several times by government appointments. He spent
6 December 1950 to December 1951 in the Foreign Service as Deputy
7 37. ‘Telegram from Dean Chief of Presentations and Publications in the European Headquarters
8 Rusk to Department of of the Economic Cooperation Administration of the Marshall Plan. A
State’, 12 February 1962;
9 NSC Files, JFK Library. member of the Fine Arts Committee of the People-to-People Program
10 from 1957 to 1960, he was also on the USIA’s Advisory Committee for
38. For a good, concise
11 account of Read’s Cultural Information from 1958 to 1963.46 According to Waldo
12 anarchism, see David Rasmussen, who worked under McCray at the IP, McCray had almost
Goodway, ‘The Politics of diplomatic status in Europe, and was ‘a more passionate supporter of
13
Herbert Read’, in Herbert
14 Read Reassessed, ed. Abstract Expressionism than anyone else in the museum’, as well as the
15 David Goodway, engine behind The New American Painting.47
Liverpool University
16 Press, Liverpool, 1998,
McCray had been working with Arnold Rüdlinger, Director of the
17 pp 177–8. Kunsthalle in Basel, through the People-to-People Program when the
18 39. ‘Letter from Dorothy
idea for an all-Abstract Expressionist show was first mooted.48
19 Miller to Alfred Barr, Rüdlinger was attempting to organise a show of Pollock, Kline,
20 Paris, July 20, 1952’, p 3. Rothko, Still and Francis for the Kunsthalle and ‘other European
Alfred Barr Papers, AAA,
21 Roll 2171. Stedelijk
institutions’, but it fell through because two of the artists, probably
22 Museum, Sandberg als Rothko and Still, refused to participate in a group exhibition.49
23 ontwerper, Amsterdam, McCray then took charge of the exhibitions, making them available to
Stedelijk Museum,
24 undated, p 42. a number of institutions on request, with apparently no provisos
25 concerning the way in which the European curators presented the
40. Maurizio Calvesi, ‘The
26 Avant-Garde Biennales’, shows. While standard catalogue texts by MoMA’s staff accompanied
27 in Venice and the the shows, the European curators appear to have been free to preface
Biennale, Itineraries of it as they saw fit. For example, Palma Bucarelli, the Director of the
28
Taste, ed. Palazzo Ducale,
29 Fabbri Editori, Venice, Galleria Nazionale dell’Arte Moderna, Rome, actively sought the
30 1995, pp 97–8. Pollock show for her museum. Contacting Alfred Barr when she heard
31 41. ‘Memorandum, of plans for it, Barr put her in touch with McCray, and they met in
32 Department of State, Rome later that summer.50 Yet, when organising the catalogue, McCray
March 24, 1955’; Central
33 Decimal File 1955–59,
only suggested that she tuck into the bibliography any recent works by
34 General Records of the Europeans on Pollock.51 Bucarelli clearly embraced the idea of Pollock’s
35 Department of State, being a contemporary international art. A powerful advocate of Italian
NACP.
36 Informale and French Informel, which she described as an existential,
37 42. Stonor Saunders, op. cit., ‘painful but authentic image of European conscience’, she presented
p 126. ‘Note from Porter
38 McCray to Alfred Barr, Pollock, too, as an existentialist painter who shared this contemporary
39 February 25, 1957, and European worldview.52
40 ‘Confidential Memo from Sensitive to gesture painting’s internationalist and existentialist
Porter McCray to
41 William Burden, February underpinnings, Jackson Pollock (January–December 1958) and The
42 25, 1957’, p 4; Barr New American Painting (May 1958–September 1959) used these
43 Papers, AAA, roll 2182. affinities to establish American Abstract Expressionism as an
44 43. For a detailed account of Atlanticist aesthetic. Emphasising the irrational and subjective aspects
the IC’s assessments, see
45 Jachec, op. cit., pp
of the movement, the American essay for the Jackson Pollock
46 190–3. catalogue, for example, was prefaced by the artist’s statement that:
47 44. McCray, ‘Biographical
48 Data’, 1.3.1980, p 1; The idea of an isolated American painting, so popular in this
49 McCray Papers, AAA.
country during the thirties, seems absurd to me just as the idea of
50 45. Ibid, pp 3–4. creating a purely American mathematics or physics would seem
51 46. McCray, ‘Biographical absurd … the basic problems of contemporary painting are
52 Data’, op. cit., p 2, p 3. independent of any country.53
 111

1 Building on this observation, the essay by Sam Hunter, another

2 MoMA employee, also located Pollock’s work as the latest, albeit
3 distinctly American, innovation upon European modernist art
4 47. Sharon Zane, ‘The
practices, notably Cubism and Surrealism, thereby creating a shared
5 MoMA Oral History Euro-American cultural heritage.54
6 Project, Interview with Jackson Pollock travelled as a solo exhibition to Amsterdam, Basel,
Waldo Rasmussen’,
7 November 1994, New Hamburg, London and Rome, and was twinned with The New
8 York City, pp 42–3. American Painting in Berlin and Paris. The latter, which appeared
9 Archive of the Museum separately in Amsterdam, Basel, Brussels, London, Madrid and Milan,
of Modern Art, New
10 York. took a similar approach in presenting Pollock’s colleagues to a
11
48. Porter McCray, ‘Report
European audience. While in the brief preface McCray vaunted it as a
12 of the Director of the IP display of a truly American avant-garde, the catalogue essay by
13 at the Second Annual MoMA’s original director, and now curator of European painting,
Meeting of the IC at the
14 MoMA’, 24 November, p
Alfred Barr, was also careful to contextualise American Abstract
15 58, McCray Papers, Expressionism regarding its European stylistic heritage and
16 AAA, box 8, p 4. philosophical origins, and its rejection of other types of American
17 49. Porter McCray, artistic production. Noting the importance for the Abstract
18 ‘Confidential Memo to Expressionists of the School of Paris painters resident in New York
William Burden on
19 Organisation Meeting of
during the war, particularly the surrealists, Barr noted that their
20 the Fine Arts Committee, approach to painting could be interpreted as existential. He wrote:
21 People-to-People ‘Confronting a blank canvas they attempt “to grasp authentic being by
Program’, p 4. Barr
22 Papers, AAA, roll 2182. action, decision, a leap of faith”, to use Karl Jaspers’ Existentialist
23 phrase’. Noting that there were often ‘Existentialist echoes in their
50. ‘Letter from Palma
24 Bucarelli to Alfred Barr, words’, he explained that this was restricted to their work. While they
25 May 20, 1957’, and ‘defiantly reject the conventional values of the society which surrounds
‘Letter from Porter them’, the artists were not ‘politically engagés even though their
26
McCray to Palma
27 Bucarelli, June 25, 1957’, paintings have been praised and condemned as symbolic
28 AAA, Barr Papers, roll demonstrations of freedom in a world in which freedom connotes a
2198.
29 political attitude’.55 Their retreat from political engagement to
30 51. Porter McCray, ‘Letter to existentialist cultural critique represented, to Barr, the political
Palma Bucarelli’, 11
31 February 1958. Archivio
maturation of a generation of ‘romantic’ American leftists who had
32 Storico della Galleria been ‘naively attracted by Communism’ at the end of the 1930s.56
33 Nazionale d’Arte The European curators, for their part, certainly helped to promote
Moderna, Roma
34 ASGNAM.
this interpretation of Abstract Expressionism.57 As we have seen,
35 Bucarelli was more than willing to present American gesture painting as
52. Palma Bucarelli, ‘Jean
36 Fautrier’, in Catalogo an Atlanticist aesthetic, and her views were typical of those of most of
37 della XXX Biennale di her European colleagues. Rüdlinger, in his essay for the German-
38 Venezia, ed. Ente language catalogue, described Abstract Expressionism as finding its
Autonomo, Stamperia di
39 Venezia, Venice, 1960, pp social and artistic ‘open-mindedness’ in the work of Jaspers, Kierkegaard
40 149–51; Palma Bucarelli, and Heidegger, yet Whitmanesque at the same time in its naturalness and
‘Presentazione’, Jackson spontaneity.58 Likewise, Franco Russoli, who wrote the catalogue essay
41 Pollock 1912–1956,
42 Rome, Galleria Nazionale for the Italian showing of The New American Painting, argued that it
43 d’Arte Moderna Roma, was because gesture painting was grounded in existentialism’s
1958, unpaginated.
44 ASGNAM.
understanding of individual perception and its role in the formation of
45 morality and hence social values that both cultures were on nothing less
53. ‘Note by the Artist’,
46 Jackson Pollock
than a ‘road traveled together’.59 Russoli is almost certain to have been a
47 1912–1956, Musée de functionary of Italy’s pro-American, and pro-integrationist, Christian
48 l’art moderne, Paris, Democratic Party. Director of the Brera in Milan, and soon to be a
1958, p 5.
49 member of the IC, he became involved with the Venice Biennale in 1957,
50 54. Sam Hunter, when its directorate was being purged of communists and socialists, and
‘Introduction’, Jackson
51 Pollock 1912–1956, pp the Christian Democratic ministers of parliament in charge of the
52 9–10. exhibition were replacing them with their own people.60
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1 55. Alfred Barr, Jr, Of all the curators of these exhibitions, Jean Cassou, head of the
2 ‘Introduction’, The New Museum of Modern Art, Paris, however, was muted regarding the
American Painting,
3 Museum of Modern Art,
Atlanticist elements in American Abstract Expressionism. This is
4 New York, 1959, pp arguably because he never relinquished his commitment to the left.61
5 15–16. Unwilling to host either exhibition – he had originally booked Jackson
6 56. Ibid, p 17. Pollock for June of 1958, but postponed it to January 1959 – he
7 57. Jachec, op. cit., pp 201–4. similarly cancelled The New American Painting, preferring to show the
8 See also Jeremy Lewison, museum’s own collections in the newly refurbished galleries.62 ‘After
9 ‘Jackson Pollock and the political and diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on him’, Jeremy
Americanization of
10 Europe’, Jackson Pollock, Lewison has noted, Cassou ‘agreed to take both shows simultaneously
11 New Approaches, ed. … but … he and his staff were not supportive of them’.63 Accordingly,
Museum of Modern Art,
12 New York, Abrams, New
Cassou’s text for The New American Painting was terse and avoided
13 York, 1999, pp 201–31. any discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of the American
14 58. Arnold Rüdlinger,
school. While noting that the new American painting had its analogue
15 ‘Vorwort’, Die Neue in European tachisme, he identified it most closely with Walt Whitman,
16 Amerikanische Malerei, the ‘autochthonous’ American.64 Naturism, primordial and pre-, if not
Basel, 1958, unpaginated.
17 anti-rational was, in Cassou’s view, at the heart of American identity.65
18 59. Franco Russoli, Interestingly, although Cassou had broken off his close relations with
‘Prefazione’, La Nuova
19 Pittura Americana, Milan, the Communist Party in 1949, his comments were not dissimilar to
20 1958, p 9. those critiques appearing in the French communist press accusing
21 60. Giovanni Ponti to Dottore Pollock of having ‘turned off the light of reason in himself and in his
22 Guido Oliva, Head of work’.66
23 Cabinet, Ministry of Cassou notwithstanding, the interest in constructing gesture
Public Instruction,
24 26.1.60, ‘Rapporto, Gli painting as an Atlanticist aesthetic appears to have been largely shared
25 inviti e le polemiche per la by the European centrists and their American counterparts. In France
partecipazione Italiana
26 alla XXX Biennale di
and Italy in particular, the promotion of this aesthetic was calculated
27 Venezia’, 285; Archivio to win over those socialists on the right as opposed to the left flank of
28 Centrale dello Stato, their party, and what would emerge from this split amongst the
Roma. This is a report
29 commissioned by the
socialists would be the centre left.67 In order to bring recalcitrant leftists
30 Ministry of Public on board, gesture painting’s advocates exploited its parallel
31 Instruction from Ponti to development in Europe and the United States.
defend his presence at the
32 Biennales since 1945 as
This parallelism had been noted by French critics throughout the
33 having no political previous 10 years, who understood the ‘second School of Paris’ to
34 motives. include gesture painters Atlan, Bazaine, Corneille, Deyrolle, Estève,
35 61. David Caute, Hartung, Lapoujade, Manessier, Pignon, Poliakov, Schneider, Soulages
36 Communism and the and Viera da Silva, amongst others.68 Embedded in French
French Intellectuals,
37 Andre Deutsch, London, existentialism, which was still a living part of French politics, this
38 1964, p 112, pp 150–1, philosophy, and the artists and intellectuals who embraced it, were
pp 184–5. now clearly divorcing from the Communist Party following the Soviet
39
40 62. Jeremy Lewison, ‘Jackson invasion of Hungary in 1956.69 A deeper consideration of the
Pollock and the
41 Americanization of
relationship of French Tachiste and, no less importantly, Italian
42 Europe’, in Jackson Informale with existentialism is beyond the scope of this essay. Yet,
43 Pollock, New that the CIA saw gesture painting as suitable for an international, and
Approaches, ed. Museum
44 of Modern Art, New
above all, humanist painting emblematic of a political centre is
45 York, Abrams, New York, indicated by its hosting, through Fleischmann and McCray, of a dinner-
46 1999, p 220. cocktail party in Paris for predominantly Paris-based gesture painters,
47 63. Ibid. curators and critics, and UNESCO officials.70 Held on 17 January 1959
48 64. Jean Cassou, ‘Foreword’, – the night after Jackson Pollock and The New American Painting
49 in Jackson Pollock et la opened in Paris – what is clear from the guest list was that the
50 Nouvelle Peinture Americans were attempting to bring the ‘second School of Paris’ into
Américaine, Éditions des
51 Musées Nationaux, Paris, contact with UNESCO, which itself was only just embarking on a 10-
52 1959, unpaginated. year project to identify the cultural bases for a universally valid
 113

1 65. Ibid.
humanism. Although UNESCO was willing to accept cultural
2 pluralism as inevitable, it was hoped that some shared values could be
66. Caute, op. cit., p 185;
3 Jachec, op. cit., p 202.
identified that could promote, through culture, human solidarity and
4 greater ‘democratisation’ across the globe.71
67. In Italy, this socialist
5 faction was the PSIU, and
6 in France the SFIO. See The American commitment to Abstract Expressionism as an Atlanticist
7 Byron Criddle, Socialists and potentially world aesthetic would end, however, as abruptly as it
and European
8 Integration, A Study of began once Kennedy took office in January 1961. For Kennedy’s
9 the French Socialist Party, presidency was marked by his confidence in the European union and
Routledge & Kegan Paul,
10
London, 1969, pp 83–90;
his concern with the non-Western world, particularly Asia, Africa and
11 Spencer Di Scala, op. cit., the Middle East. As Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, Harvard historian, guru
12 pp 104–6, pp 110–16. of the postwar new liberalism, and special adviser to Kennedy,
13 68. Alfred Pacquement, reflected, Kennedy was unworried by European neutralism: ‘the third
14 ‘Confrontations world had now become the critical battleground between democracy
1950–1953’, in
15 Paris–New York
and communism. ... The battle for Europe … had been … essentially
16 1908–1968, Centre won by the end of the forties’.72
17 Georges While there were regular disagreements with de Gaulle over the
Pompidou/Gallimard,
18 Paris, 1991, p 647; Laure nature of European union, Kennedy’s administration was nonetheless
19 de Buzon-Vallet, ‘L’Ecole confident of the French president’s inability to derail it. As Robert
20 de Paris, éléments d’une Komer of the CIA noted to McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy’s chief foreign
enqûete’, in Paris–Paris
21 1937–1957, Centre policy adviser and president of the NSC:73
22 Georges
23 Pompidou/Gallimard, In a nutshell … we must face up to the reality of Europe’s new
Paris, 1992, p 379. feistiness and use it rather than fight it. ... After all, it is true that we
24
69. Jean Cassou, Une vie ran Europe in the 1950s. The ‘Gaullist’ reaction is a natural one,
25 though heightened by the General’s particular style. Let’s adjust to
pour la liberté, Robert
26 Laffont, Paris, p 233, p it enough to rob it of its sting, confident that in the last analysis de
27 237, p 241. Gaulle can’t create the independent Europe he may seek.74
28 70. ‘Invitation List to Dinner-
29 Cocktail Party given by At this time, reports were also flooding into the White House from
Mr. Julius Fleischmann, European embassies and from the ACA that reinforced the need for the
30 Saturday, 17.1.59, at La
31 Closerie des Lilas, 171 United States to develop an independent cultural identity. The critical
32 Boulevard Montparnasse, response to Jackson Pollock and The New American Painting in
Paris’, McCray Papers,
33 AAA.
particular had turned the ACA into a forum for complaints from
34 European ambassadors. The American Embassy in Rome reported in
71. UNESCO, ‘L’appréciation
35 mutuelle des valeurs
May 1958 that since MoMA had become most active in organising
36 culturelles de l’orient et exhibitions in Italy, the stress had been on ‘the non-objective school’, and
37 de l’occident’, April, requested that there be ‘additional representation of other schools, in
1958, Comprendre, no.
38 19, 1957/58, p 273, p 5. order to present a more full and balanced picture of work being done in
39 the United States today’.75 The USIA Rome also noted that, while it
72. Schlesinger, op. cit., p
40 444. appreciated the IC’s contribution to ‘establishing an understanding of the
41 high level of American artistic production and American appreciation of
73. Winand, op. cit., p 155.
42 the fine arts’, the USIA should give serious thought to the problem of
74. Robert Komer, ‘Note to bringing to foreign countries, at least to Italy, examples of ‘the best that
43 McGeorge Bundy’, 11
44 February 1963; NSC has been produced in the representational field’, such as Joan Mitchell
45 Files, JFK Library. and Jasper Johns.76 A heavily sanitised, recently declassified CIA
46 75. ‘Memorandum from the document suggests that disquiet was felt beyond Italy, with a number of
47 American Embassy, Rome European ambassadors requesting that they be uninvolved with the
to the State Department,
48 Washington, May 9,
‘dirty business’ of covert artistic propaganda programmes.77
49 1958’; General Records This feedback confirmed the ACA’s own doubts about leaving the
50 of the ACA 1951–1962, travelling exhibitions more or less exclusively in the hands of MoMA. In
General Records of the
51 Department of State, May, 1959, the ACA conceded that if ‘everything should be channeled
52 NACP. by the MoMA’ it would look like ‘everybody from twenty to thirty-five
 114

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51 JFK and Leo Castelli with Jasper Johns’s Flag, White House, 14 June 1963. Photograph courtesy of the John F Kennedy
52 Library, Boston, MA

1 is doing non-objective art’.78 Neither the State Department nor the
2 76. Alfred V Boerner,
3 ‘Despatch from USIS
4 Rome to USIA
Washington DC, July 18,
5 1958’; General Records
6 of the State Department,
7 NACP.
8 77. ‘Subject, Covert
9 Operations’, May 9,
1961, p 2, p 4;
10 Presidential Office Files,
11 JFK Library.
12 78. ‘Fifth Meeting of the
13 ACA Executive Session’,
19 May 1959, p 12, p
14 22; General Records of
15 the ACA 1951–1962,
16 General Records of the
State Department, NACP.
17
18 79. Secret Report, ‘Inclusion
of Data on CU in General
19 Assumptions and Policy
20 guides, FY 1961’, 1
21 September 1959, 1, pp
6–7; Bureau of Cultural
22 Affairs, 1956–60, General
23 Records of Department
of State, NACP.
24
25 80. Ibid, pp 42–3.
26 81. ACA, ‘Official Minutes
27 of the Ninth Meeting of
the Advisory Committee
28 on the Arts, September
29 12–13, 1960’, p 1;
30 General Records of the
ACA 1951–1962,
31 General Records of the
32 Department of State,
33 NACP.
34 82. Preston et al., op. cit.,
35 104; J E Slater, ‘Basic
36
Philosophy, Objectives
and Proposed Role of CU
37 Concerning U.S. Policies
and Programs in the
38
Educational and Cultural
39 Fields during the 1960s’,
40 first draft, 26 March
1961, p 1; Schlesinger
41 White House Files, JFK
42 Library.
43 83. Ibid., 2.
44
84. Carleton Sprague Smith,
45 ‘A Survey of Multi-
46 National Cooperation
47 Made in Europe from
June 24 to September 2,
48 1961 for The Bureau of
49 Educational and Cultural
50 Affairs, The US
Department of State’, pp
51 2–3; Heckscher Papers,
52 JFK Library.
115
USIA had ever been fully comfortable with the government’s reliance
on the IC travelling shows, and their dissatisfaction featured regularly
in their internal and inter-agency reports between 1958 and 1962. For
example, in September 1959, the CU issued an internal report outlining
its European policy for 1960–61, based on the forecast that the
tendency toward neutralism might well accelerate, and that the Soviet
Union would continue its efforts to expand. It flagged France and Italy
as still being ‘of particular concern’, given de Gaulle’s efforts to
establish France on an equal footing with the USA and Britain, and
Italy’s political instability even more precarious because of its
formidable communist party.79 While CU advocated continued cultural
programmes to the region, it also noted that the planning of these
programmes needed to be centralised by the State Department’s
Country Teams.80 Twelve months later, the ACA again warned the State
Department that reliance on non-governmental cultural programmes
needed to be reconsidered. Noting that the USIA, under George Allen’s
direction, had proved ‘its integrity as a legitimate aspect of foreign
affairs’, it was now time for a public display of government
sponsorship of American culture abroad in order to give propaganda
‘a less sinister connotation’.81 This could be achieved through overt
government sponsorship of shows promoting a consistent message.
What followed was the reinterpretation of Abstract Expressionism in
uniquely American terms – pragmatic, and giving rise to a plurality of
recent innovations, and the rationale behind its redefinition was intonated
in the Slater Report of Spring, 1961. This was the first of a ‘spate of expert
reports’ produced by the State Department on the shortcomings of the
United States’ cultural relations programmes, that chided the USA for
having ‘come late’ to the realisation that ‘educational and cultural
activities are … a major instrument of foreign policy, to be joined with
political and economic activities in sustaining and directing the position
of the United States in world affairs’.82 While it did not mention what
specific cultural products should be circulated, it did warn, however, that:
… any hint of educational or cultural imperialism will strike as
deeply at the sensibilities of another country as a hint of political or
economic imperialism. We cannot transplant our education and our
culture; we can only display them honestly, make it possible for
others to judge them fairly, and help others put them to use.83
The report also advocated dismantling the approach taken by the
USIA, which operated on either an individual country or regional basis,
in favour of promoting a consistent representation of American culture
on a global scale. Similarly, the Sprague Report, circulated in autumn
that year, reasserted the need for ‘multilateral’ as opposed to bilateral
exchanges, and to work with Western European aspirations for
cultivating democratic principles at home and across the globe.84
The achievement of this independent cultural identity, however,
meant the curbing of the unattributed exhibitions. Within six months
of taking office Schlesinger and Kennedy were already drafting plans
for bringing the CIA under the jurisdiction of the Department of
State.85 One of their first targets was the OCB, disbanded in February
1961.86 Schlesinger saw these changes as morally necessary, as the
 116

1 current activities of the CIA contravened the very notion of ‘a free and
2 85. Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr, open society’.87 Schlesinger was arguably the closest of Kennedy’s
3 ‘Memorandum for the advisers; they were in contact almost daily throughout the presidency,88
4 President, CIA and it was he who impressed upon the president the need to present the
Reorganization’, 30 June
5 1961; Schlesinger White United States as above all a pluralist society. In March 1962 he noted
6 House Files, JFK Library. to the president: ‘What we must do is both to emphasise the fact that
7 86. Jeffreys-Jones, op. cit., p our objective is a pluralist world and to rethink our international
8 121. relationships in these terms.’89 Concerning the extent to which his
9 87. Schlesinger, views would be expressed in the stylistically diverse government
10 ‘Memorandum for the exhibitions that travelled to Europe in 1962, it is likely that Schlesinger
President’, 30 June 1961.
11 played a key role in forming the ideological rubric under which they
12 88. Wolf von Eckhardt, were organised. Recently declassified documents outlining the special
‘Interview with August
13 Heckscher’, 10 December
interests of Kennedy’s White House staff identify Schlesinger as the
14 1965; Oral History only member with an interest in cultural exchanges. He is described as
15 Program, JFK Library. concerned with, amongst other things, ‘US image abroad – especially
16 89. Schlesinger, USIA, CIA and cultural relations’, and ‘Europe (Internal Affairs) –
17 ‘Memorandum for the especially’.90
President, Around the
18 World in 42 Days, March Pluralism certainly defined the USIA exhibitions Vanguard
19 5, 1962’, p 3; Presidential American Painting and ART: USA: NOW, which followed soon after
20 Office Files, JFK Library. the curtailing of covert operations. Under the direction of Edward
21 90. National Security Murrow, whose approach was flexible and pragmatic, the USIA would
22 Council,’Memorandum restrict itself to the avant-garde, yet would self-consciously expand that
to the IL Staff, List of
23 Subjects of Interest to definition to include a far more diverse offering than Abstract
24 Staff’, 7 February 1962; Expressionism. 91 In January 1962 Murrow diplomatically relieved the
White House Files, JFK
25 Library.
IC of its sole responsibility for representing the United States in
26 Europe. While stating that IC exhibitions were of ‘excellent caliber’,
91. Jeffreys-Jones, op. cit., p
27 121; Elder, op. cit., p 39.
they were ‘selected with the specialized slant typical of MoMA’, which
28 was now drawing requests from cultural leaders abroad for a broader
92. Lois Bingham,
29 ‘Memorandum re
representation of American art.92 He therefore urged greater
30 Correspondence between coordination between the USIA and the IC. A more conciliatory letter
31 Mr. Murrow and Mr. was sent by Murrow to Barr three weeks later, explaining that the USIA
D’Harnoncourt, January
32 16, 1962’; Records of the was now ‘under pressure to shift its efforts from Europe to Africa, Asia
33 Office of the Director, and Latin America’,93 and he later noted that the programme with the
34 USIA, 1953–64, Records IC was not ‘sacrificed lightly’.94
of the USIA, NACP
35 Smithsonian Institution In 1963, the USIA issued its own guidelines concerning how art
36 Archives, Washington, should be chosen for circulation abroad, stipulating that the artists and
37 DC, SIA. works should ‘represent or reflect elements of life in the US of which
38 93. Edward Murrow, ‘Letter we are most proud’, and that ‘over-commitment to specific tastes –
to Alfred Barr’, 1
39 February 1962; Barr
whether traditional or avant-garde – is often open to misunderstanding
40 Papers, AAA, roll 2199. and criticism’.95 These guidelines, however, did not exclude private
41 94. Edward Murrow, ‘Letter
sector involvement, but simply brought it under the jurisdiction of the
42 to Alfred Barr’, 9 USIA, recommending that selections be left in the hands of ‘recognized
43 February 1962; Barr experts in the particular art form concerned’, who had ‘clear-cut
Papers, AAA, roll 2199.
44 instructions as to the purposes to be served by a given project and its
45 95. James A Donovan, ‘A desired scope and content’.96
Statement on the
46 Selection of American Art This new approach to representing the American avant-garde was
47 to Be Sent Abroad Under evident in Vanguard American Painting. Opening in Vienna in June
48 the Government’s 1961, and travelling to Salzburg, Belgrade, Madrid, Skopje, Zagreb,
International Cultural
49 Relations Programs’, Maribor, Ljubljana, Rijeka, Madrid, London and Darmstadt, the
50 c.1963, p 1, p 3; RU321, mission of this show was clearly to undo the identification of Abstract
SIA. Expressionism as an Atlantic style, redefining it as a pragmatic and
51
52 96. Ibid, p 3. uniquely American art form. Abstract Expressionism was well
 117

1 represented, yet the catalogue introduction explained that because it

2 was the ‘most important experimental style in the history of American
3 painting’, it deserved to figure prominently.97 This introduction, by H
4 H Arnason, Director of the Guggenheim in New York, did
5 acknowledge the European influences on Abstract Expressionism in its
6 early years through Surrealism. Yet it was dismissive of the lasting
7 importance of this early encounter: ‘no artistic movement, and least of
8 all abstract expressionism, can be understood simply as an
9 accumulation of influences. In 1942, [it] could not even be called a
10 movement.’98 Moreover, it was only one, albeit very important,
11 example of an American penchant for innovation, preceded by Stuart
12 Davis and Milton Avery, and followed by hard-edge abstractionists
13 such as Ellsworth Kelly, and figurative artists such as Richard
14 Diebenkorn, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Of the creative
15 possibilities it could subsequently spawn, Arnason concluded: ‘Of
16 American painting in 1961 it can only be said that it is varied, it is
17 experimental, it is healthy, it is prolific….’99
18 ART, USA, NOW built on Vanguard American Painting’s
19 interpretation of Abstract Expressionism as a distinctly American
20 practice, yet renounced that movement’s status as the only American
21 vanguard. Comprising solely works from the Johnson Wax Company
22 corporate collection, it toured 15 Western European countries in 1963
23 and 1964, before travelling to Asia and South America in 1965, then
24 touring across the United States in 1966. Its overriding purpose was to
25 establish American art as both avant-garde and pluralist. Although the
26 USIA provided only practical support and assistance, this show
27 attacked the privileging of Abstract Expressionism in the IP shows. The
28 catalogue introduction by Lee Nordness, a New York gallery owner
29 who presided over the purchasing of the collection, explained the
30 exhibition as a corrective to the skewed depiction of current American
31 art practices that was demanded by the Europeans themselves.100
32 97. H H Arnason, Accusing American museums of ‘taste making’, he argued that their
33 ‘Introduction’, in privileging of this movement had misinformed the public by ‘endorsing
Vanguard American
34 Painting, London, 1962, and promoting beyond ethical limits’.101
35 unpaginated. Moving on from the question of institutional bias, the main
36 98. Ibid. catalogue essay by Allen S. Weller dealt with the question of
37 internationalism in American art, taking a more exaggerated position
99. Ibid.
38 on the relationship between European and American art than that of
100.Edward Murrow, ‘Letter Vanguard American Painting. While he noted the ‘contributions to the
39 to H F Johnson’, 27
40 April 1962; Records of art of the twentieth century’ made by the European painters present in
41 the Office of the the United States during the war, he asserted that ‘it was only after they
Director, USIA, 1953–64,
42 Records of the USIA,
reached this country that they found complete fulfillment’.102
43 NACP; Lee Nordness, Both these exhibitions renounced Abstract Expressionism as an
44 ‘Introduction’, in ART, Atlanticist aesthetic, the first by divorcing it from its European roots,
USA, NOW, ed. Lee
45 Nordness, Lucerne, C J
and by playing up its experimental, pragmatic and thus essentially
46 Bucher, 1962, p 5. American qualities, the second by denying the importance of Europe
47 101.Ibid., p 7. for Abstract Expressionism at all, and challenging that movement’s
48 centrality to current American practices. This change of tactic clearly
102.Allen S Weller, ‘Art,
49 USA, Now’, in ART, had ramifications for the IC, which, according to Helen Franc, decided
50 USA, NOW, ed. in January 1960 to distance itself from the USIA exhibitions, which
51 Nordness, 11. ‘were tinged with an atmosphere of propaganda’, and to devote itself
52 103.Franc, op. cit., p 141. to specifically modern exhibitions.103 Nor was it welcomed by a
 118

1 number of European curators who had helped to establish Abstract

2 Expressionism as an Atlanticist aesthetic. McCray, reporting to
3 d’Harnoncourt on the progress of ART: USA: NOW and its
4 ‘unfortunate pluralism’, noted that it had been turned down by the
5 Tate, Cassou and Bucarelli.104
6 Clearly, the Atlanticist aesthetic was over, and the Europeans were
7 not interested in cooperating with the new American approach. This
8 seems to have mattered little however, as American sights were by then
9 firmly set on the Third World. The IC continued to work with the
10 Kennedy administration towards achieving these new goals, sharing its
11 personnel and international connections with the government.
12 Kennedy was doubtlessly very familiar with the IC, as it repeatedly had
13 sought his membership and that of his wife since the late 1950s, with
14 Jackie Kennedy becoming an honorary member in February 1962. She
15 104.McCray, ‘Memorandum was also involved in some of its programmes in India on behalf of the
16 to d’Harnoncourt’, 2 IC and The Asia Society.105 In October 1961 McCray was sent by the
January 1963; McCray
17 Papers, AAA.
Museum of Modern Art, The Asia Society and the State Department to
18 tour Australasia, 19 countries in Asia, and 19 in Africa, in order to
105.‘Letter from Mrs. Bliss
19 Parkinson, President of ‘determine the need and local response to projects proposed by the
20 the International United States Government or private institutions’.106 This piecemeal,
21 Council, to All Council pragmatic approach, in which exhibits were planned to meet current
Members, March 1,
22 1962’, Barr Papers, political exigencies for specific locations, was a clear departure from
23 AAA, roll 2199. the broad, regional plan engineered by the OCB. It also embodied the
24 106.McCray, ‘Biographical values of the New Frontier, which were pragmatic and experimental by
25 Data’, op. cit., p 2, p 3. Kennedy’s own definition, and global in their progressivist vision.
26
27
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29
30
31
32
33
34
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