1949 Criticism of Boston Museum of Fine Arts for Showing Communists

IN RECENT YEARS There has been a serious reevaluation past art historians of the significant American contributions in the 1940s and 1950s to 20th-century art. The grim facts remain that an well-nigh pathological fright of communist infiltration in the first decade after World War Two resulted in 1 of this state's most shameful endeavors to deny artists their basic freedom of expression.

The late Senator Joseph McCarthy never centered his attacks on either fine art or artists. But his colleagues in Congress often equated all seemingly radical activities—especially artistic ones—with political extremism. Nowhere is this view more axiomatic than in the biting attacks of George A. Dondero, the Republican representative from Michigan. Trained as a lawyer, with no background in fine art or fine art criticism, Dondero launched a one-man 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 fine art was communist inspired considering of the "depraved" and "destructive" nature of its forms. In a congressional speech on August 16, 1949, he explained the use of the major 20th-century styles as vehicles for destruction:

Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder.
Futurism aims to destroy past the automobile myth . . .
Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule.
Expressionism aims to destroy by aping the primitive and insane.
Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of brainstorms . . .
Surrealism aims to destroy by the denial 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 advanced art was rapidly becoming a communist-inspired menace. In an interview with Emily Genauer, then a critic for the New York World Telegram but later on released by the newspaper because of Dondero's vague charges of her sympathies with left-fly organizations, Dondero summed up his views:

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

Dondero severely criticized American artists who refused to acknowledge the higher up principle. In various speeches, he described them every bit "human termites," "germ-carrying vermin," and "international art thugs." He as well concluded that mod artists who advocatefreedom to experiment in a nontraditionalist style were charlatans because 1) they really could non describe; 2) they were insane; 3) they were involved in a plot to brand the bourgeoisie nervous; and 4) they were committed to degrade their fine art for the purpose of communist propaganda. Every bit examples of European artists who had imposed their anti-American ideas on American artists, he named, among many others, Picasso, who had publicly best-selling his communist leanings, Braque, Léger, Duchamp, Ernst, Matta, Miró, Dali, Chagall—all of whom, he claimed, were active weapons of the Kremlin.

Fine art museums and professional fine art associations also became favorite targets for Dondero's assaults. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Art Plant 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 accept discovered that "of the 77 officers, directors, and governors . . . accept left-wing connections—and more significant, 42 members [of the Communist Party]."

It was apparent that Dondero had no concept of creative activity nether any form of dictatorial regime. In Genauer's interview with Dondero, it was pointed out to him how coincidental his speeches were to those of Lenin and Stalin. Similarly, Alfred Barr, Jr., himself the target of right-fly attacks, devoted a long commodity to proving that modern fine art and communism or fascism were in direct opposition. Dondero'due south charges furthermore overlooked a United States Courtroom ruling of 1946 (Hannegan five. Esquire, 327 U.Southward. 46) that "A requirement that literature or art should adapt to a norm smacks of an ideology foreign to our system."

In Congress, Dondero'southward fellow representatives rarely rebuked his charges openly; indeed just a small-scale handful of congressional individuals privately admitted their disagreement. Of the few whose opposition is a matter of public tape, the criticism of Senator Jacob Javits is particularly noteworthy:

Criticism of the tape of individuals as citizens or residents of the United states of america and give-and-take of their political backgrounds and present beliefs is ane matter, just an effort to discredit all modern art forms is quite some other and one of which note should be taken and which should be deprecated, for my colleague'due south personal stance of mod fine art is his privilege, but my colleague's suggestion that it should all be lumped together and discredited—perhaps suppressed—because he believes it is being used by some—even many—artists to infiltrate Communist ideas is a very dangerous utilise of the give-and-take "communism." The very bespeak which distinguishes our grade of free expression from communism is the fact that modern fine art can live and flourish hither without state authority or censorship and be accepted by Americans who think well of it.

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

Simply a great, generous, muddling commonwealth like ours could beget 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 Russia while they become on painting pictures that would land them in jail nether a Communist government.

Many artists attacked past Dondero were song in their opposition. Perchance Ben Shahn'southward comments were the most eloquent. He pointed out that what right-fly congressmen were trying to suppress, namely liberty of thought, was in essence the heart of creative creation; to deny the creative person the correct to paint or sculpt whatever themes and in whatever style he chooses was to deny his entire liberty.

Dondero's influence was greatest in ii spheres of artistic activity betwixt 1946 and 1956: outset, in the condemnation and suppression of fine art exhibitions which displayed mod art or art by suspected communists; second, the censorship and attempted destruction of large-calibration landscape decoration in prominent buildings. The targets were particularly government-sponsored piece of work.

The first major show ridiculed past Dondero's direct instigation was a State Department-sponsored exhibition, organized in 1946 as a goodwill gesture to the governments of Europe and Latin America. This exhibition, called "Advancing American Art," fully accorded with the standard practice of exhibiting American art away, a programme originated nether State Department auspices in 1938 as part of the Cultural Cooperation Program. The general purpose of this kind of sponsorship was defined by former Secretary of State William Benton before hearings of an appropriations subcommittee in 1948:

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

For "Advancing American Art," the State Section allotted about $49,000, and instructed Leroy Davidson to purchase paintings he considered outstanding and of lasting value. Inside this narrow budget, Davidson purchased 79 works by 45 well-known artists of the period. Included in the buy 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 Fine art" was divided into 2 traveling exhibits, 40 paintings for Europe, the remainder for Latin America, each exhibition to bout for a v-yr period.

Soon later the announcement of Davidson'southward purchases, various groups protested the choice. The Baltimore American, a right-wing paper, was probably the get-go to print a formal protestation in an editorial in October, 1946, on the basis that

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

Thereafter the influential American Artists Professional person League (more often than not illustrators and commercial artists) sent a letter of complaint to the Fine art Assimilate. Dated November six, 1946, the letter claimed that the evidence was overwhelmingly 1-sided toward modern fine art, thus precluding a fair representation of the contemporary fine art scene. Albert Reid, the national vice-president of the organization, besides protested Davidson's choices because they did not in any sense represent styles "indigenous to our soil." This protest was the beginning of what has been described as "the cold war in the art world."

Other organizations began to publicly voice their antagonism to the prove. Disapprovals were published by such professional person societies as the Society of Illustrators, Allied Artists, and the Salmagundi (Watercolor) Club—all of which were composed primarily of commercial artists. The ground of protestation was that the selection of modernistic 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 world also bitterly attacked the exhibition. Especially vehement and abusive rebukes came from newspapers and magazines endemic past William Randolph Hearst. Similar Dondero, Hearst equated whatsoever grade of artist radicalism with communism, and assumed that all of the work produced in a nontraditionalist manner was a disguised means of communist propaganda. His newspapers continually illustrated examples of the testify, particularly those by Davis, Marin, and Shahn, oft using vilifying captions to misconstrue their content and value—an action not different that taken by 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 sheet and thrown paint at it . . . if that'south art, I'thousand a Hottentot." Less than a month later, Fourth dimension magazine reported that Secretary of State George C. Marshall (the target of a McCarthy attack later in 1951), was incensed by the bear witness'southward radicalism. Marshall, under whose aegis the evidence was originally organized, finally ordered "no more than taxpayers' money for mod art."

Shortly thereafter the Land Department, caught in the middle of a politically embarrassing situation,ordered a halt to "Advancing American Art." This unprecedented activity unfortunately established a precedent for dealing with exhibitions in which defendant painters and sculptors were involved. Information technology demonstrated the power and influence of Dondero's views.

The termination of the show 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 get-go place, would go to such extremes to appease a modest group politically on the correct. Various art journals protested the counterfoil, and in June and July respectively, the American Federation of Arts and many American museum directors voiced their opinions lamenting the State Section determination.

In 1948 the Land Section decided rather than keep the paintings it would sell them at a public sale. Preference in the bidding went to educational institutions and to World War Two veterans. The results of the sale yielded a 95% loss on the original $49,000 investment. The final irony, it seems, came when the Hearst arrangement, whom the Art Digest blamed for exerting the most force per unit area on the federal bureau, bought five of the auctioned pictures for the Los Angeles County Museum, a museum heavily endowed by Hearst's publications.

In 1951 and 1952 the condemnation of exhibitions dealing with modernistic art became intense. Two major shows were nether intense pressure to exist canceled or, at the very least, to withdraw works by artists suspected of associating with left-fly causes.

The Los Angeles City Quango sponsored a major exhibit in Griffith Park of the current trends in American fine art. By its very intention, the undertaking was at that fourth dimension a courageous deed. About immediately, protests were lodged by some commercial artists and illustrators, hardly represented in the bear witness, claiming that the political background of some of the participants was questionable. Equally a result, a commission within the City Council was appointed to investigate these charges. After considerable argue, three members of the Building and Safety Committee headed by Harold Harby introduced a resolution stating that information technology was the official opinion of the committee that "ultramodern artists are unconsciously used as tools of the Kremlin . . . " and that in some cases, abstruse paintings were actually undercover maps of strategic Us fortifications. Equally testify of the merits of communist infiltration, Harby singled out two works in the show. Rex Brandt, a local creative person, was severely criticized for incorporating "propaganda" in his second-prize painting Kickoff Lift of the Sea because he had included what appeared to exist a hammer and sickle in the sail of a ship. Brandt, who for many years had been a boating enthusiast and the caput designer for a major boating firm, explained that the section in question was zippo more a traditional craft insignia used to designate the Island Clipper. Yet, Harby pressured Brandt into eliminating the objectionable symbol. Significant criticism was besides directed against a sculpture past Bernard Rosenthal, Crucifixion. The Harby committee 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 it made Jesus look similar a frog," and lamented that he could not buy it to insure its destruction.

Liberal factions of the art world protested these actions vigorously. Eastern museum officials jointly sent an official protest to the Los Angeles City Quango pointing out again that the aforementioned type of repression, under the guise of patriotic duty, was mutual in Nazi Frg, and, indeed, a reality in present-solar day Soviet Russia.

However, the event of whether modern art was communist-inspired and whether avant-garde artists were hired by the Soviet government to propagandize American secrets raged intensely in Los Angeles until January, 1952. Amid hearings, arguments, demonstrations, protests, and counter-protests, the City Quango ruled by an xi–3 vote that at that place was no substantial evidence in back up of a vast communist plot within the framework of modern art.

While these questions were beingness debated, a similar situation occurred in New York in connectedness with "American Sculpture 1951," a large retrospective of recent sculpture organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show was attacked by some unauthorized members of the bourgeois National Sculpture Society, who claimed, every bit before, that modern fine art was definitely linked to totalitarianism, and that it "endanger(due south) the fundamental freedom of our piece of work and national life." Furthermore, Don de Lue, the caput of the gild, firmly asserted that because the Metropolitan was guilty of supporting "aesthetic leftism," it 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 past reactionary elements more than ever in our contempo history, this injection of fake political problems into artistic controversy and broadcasting them to an uninformed public is a despicable human activity.

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

works of avowed Communists, persons convicted of crimes involving a threat to the security of the The states or persons who publicly refuse to answer questions of Congressional committees regarding connection with the Communist movement.

Despite these feelings, the USIA felt secure plenty to lend support to an exhibition in connectedness with the Olympic Games of 1956. The showroom, entitled "Sport in Art," was organized by the American Federation of Arts with fractional funding from Sports Illustrated mag. 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 concluding showing in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the host city for the Olympics. The heavily publicized bout was well attended and met well-nigh no resistance to the inclusion of examples of modern art until the show reached Dallas.

Up to that time, Dallas citizen groups had had a long history of attempting to suppress the showing of advanced fine art in local museums. The traditional reason behind these acts was the supposed connectedness of modernism in the arts with communism, though one time the reason was blatant anti-Semitism. Earlier examples of protests in Dallas included the "In Memoriam" testify, where it was charged that 6 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, considering of the inclusion of a modest work by William Zorach, believed to be a communist.

A proficient deal of protestation was too directed toward the Dallas Museum, where "Sport in Art" was to be housed. On March 15, 1955, just a few months before the installation of the testify, The Public Affairs Luncheon Club, a group of 400 women headed by Mrs. Florence Rodgers, a former member of the Dallas Fine art Association, drafted a resolution declaring that the museum was placing too much accent on "all phases of futuristic, modernistic and non-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 social club explained that the underlying principle behind these demands was that modern artists were used by the Kremlin equally "instruments of destruction." As proof of this assumption the guild quoted verbatim from Dondero'due south 1949 speech communication (though not best-selling) of how mod art "aims to destroy." In Apr, the trustees of the Dallas Museum issued a reply:

that it was non Museum policy to knowingly learn or exhibit work of a person known past them to be a Communist or of Communist-front end affiliations; that they had obtained the Attorney-General's 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 fourth dimension "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 system composed of the American Legion, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and several other bourgeois groups. Nether the directorship of Colonel Owsley, the Quango demanded the removal of works past Zorach, Kuniyoshi, Kroll, and Shahn, as well as a public declaration by the Dallas Museum of a firm policy not to exhibit works by avowed communist supporters. A spokesman for the Council clarified these demands:

We are not interested in esthetics or in traditional versus modernistic art. We are non interested in the excellence of the fine art or the story the fine art portrays. We are not even interested in the nationality, morals, education, religion, or good looks of the creative person. Nosotros are interested only in seeing that the Dallas Art Association refrains from showing works by Communist or Communist-forepart artists whose records of Communist-front affiliations are public information obtained by Congressional committees.

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

On February 11, 1956, the Dallas Art Association announced that the Museum would ban no pictures, that it would stand up firmly on the belief that there was no evidence to suggest communist infiltration. Despite this proclamation, the USIA felt that the charges confronting the show were meaning. Apparently fearing the fate of the 1946 Land Department prove, "Sport in Art" was canceled subsequently its Dallas preview. Government officials attempted to hide the fact that the protest by the Council was the sole reason for their decision.

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

These controversies, withal present despite McCarthy's censure in Congress ii years earlier, resulted in an even tighter and more restrictive control on traveling exhibitions. The USIA announced shortly afterward the termination of "100 American Artists" that information technology would ban from such exhibits "American oil paintings dated afterwards 1917"—the year of the Russian Revolution—because the artist might arouse suspicions of communist sympathies. In dissimilarity to this policy, the American Federation of Arts pointed out a oral communication made past President Eisenhower on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of The Museum of Modern Art in New York:

Freedom of the Arts is a bones freedom, one of the pillars of liberty in our country. . . . As long as artists are at freedom to feel with high personal intensity, as long as our artists are free to create with sincerity and confidence, in that location will be good for you controversy and progress in art.

But as attempts were made to condemn art exhibitions, so were in that location efforts to censor and destroy unmarried works of fine art, specially large mural commissions in public buildings, often because it was believed that the artist in question was using the public edifice equally a forum for communist propaganda.¹ At the New School for Social Inquiry, 4 murals had been painted in 1930 past the well-known and much accused Mexican painter, José Clemente Orozco, with the commissioned subject of "social revolutions astir in the world." The panels depicted the Mexican Revolution, and so in full blossom, the nonviolent motility in India, the Chinese Revolution led past Sunday Yat-sen, and the Russian Revolution, which included big portraits of Lenin and Stalin. In 1951, teachers and students alike began to harass schoolhouse regime over the Russian portion of the work, alleging the portraits and theme were offensive. The school responded by placing a plaque beneath the panel asserting that the view expressed did not reflect that of the school, but past the summer of 1953, protests called for the devastation of the unabridged work. Dr. Hans Simons, president of the school, compromised these demands past covering the offensive section of the work with a big curtain. This measure out was explained as being only temporary while in that location was a "period of great unease about Russian federation." The drape was subsequently contradistinct and removed.

At approximately the same time, a controversy flared upward over the work of Orozco'due south countryman, Diego Rivera. In 1922 he had been deputed by Edsel Ford to paint a mural in Detroit called The Age of Steel. In 1952, Eugene I. van Antwerp, the former mayor of the Urban center, argued that the work independent a good deal of breathy communist propaganda, and represented the urban center's work force as "ugly and decadent." The Detroit Art Commission, however, refused to yield to the immense pressure exerted past him and his followers, and permitted the big mural to stand.^two

Although these examples of threatened murals were significant instances of the imposition of current political ideology on art, no case was more historic or controversial than the commission 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 problems and fears and so clearly present during the first postwar decade.

Built-in in Moscow in 1905, Refregier left Russia for Paris in 1920 to further his fine art studies. By 1923 he immigrated to the United States, and in 1933 became a naturalized citizen. In America he, forth with other writers and artists, became associated with left-fly causes, especially during the Depression years. Forth with his Russian heritage these alliances caused diverse groups to label him a communist supporter. Refregier was reputed to be i of the country'southward best landscape painters. In 1941 he entered a national competition for a mural to depict the history of California in the Rincon Addendum Post Office. Sponsored by the Federal Section of Fine Arts, 82 leading artists completed, with the final prize of $26,000 being awarded to Refregier. The commission required that the creative person must

relate to the people in contemporary idiom the history of their own feel, not as pageant, but every bit the growth of the city, a struggle of men confronting nature, and later on on, the development of diverse inner tensions.

Refregier began piece of work on the 240-human foot mural late in 1941, but was interrupted by the state of war; the work was not completed until 1949. During this time in that location were 91 official conferences and inspections by officers of the Public Building Administration, 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 past the Golden Gate; Sir Francis Drake; Conquistadores Notice the Pacific; Monks Building the Missions; Preaching and Farming at Mission Dolores; Fort Ross—Russian Trade Post; Hardships of the Emigrant Trail; An Early on Newspaper Office; Raising the Bear Flag; Finding Golden at Sutter's Mill; Miners Panning Gold; Inflow by Ship; Torchlight Parade; Pioneers Receiving Post; Edifice the Railroad; Vigilante Days; Ceremonious War Issues; Chinese Riots; San Francisco as a Cultural Center; Earthquake and Fire of 1906; Reconstruction Subsequently the Fire; The Mooney Case; The Waterfront—1934; Building the Gold Gate Span; Shipyards during the War; War and Peace.

The panels were criticized for a variety of reasons. The last panel showing the nascence of the United Nations, for instance, included the founding fathers signing the proclamation and establishing the peace-keeping organization. When submitted for approval, the authorities disapproved of the sketch because of the "undignified manner" in which Roosevelt had been drawn. Refregier explained that he purposely selected a portrait of Roosevelt after the Yalta meetings, already aged and ill. The regime saw this as 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 besides every bit on newspaper pictures, in order, he said, to gain greater historical accuracy. The Five.F.W. and the Hearst newspapers objected to one figure in the scene who quite patently wore a hat belonging to the V.F.W. organization. The Five.F.W. insisted no member of their system was involved in the strike, and that the artist's inclusion of the chapeau implied that the organization supported the strike. The newspaper pictures Refregier relied upon, when presented to the V.F.W., conspicuously showed a member of their arrangement nowadays in at least one photo. But the federal authorities, under potent pressure, demanded the removal of the chapeau, which was painted out. Refregier was once more forced to change his designs in the section Torchlight Parade, depicting the winning of the 8-hour workday. In commemoration of the consequence, Refregier included a effigy holding up a sign which read "Ship Caulkers Union Won an 8-hr Day in 1865." The American Legion and the Sailors' Wedlock protested vigorously, and verbally abused the artist while working on the section. Pickets were organized around this section in an attempt to physically prevent its completion. Refregier was forced to overpaint the sign.

Other arguments developed over the mural. In the console depicting the establishment of the Castilian missions, protests arose about priests who, it was claimed, were represented equally besides 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, every bit a result of this item, implied that war and aggressiveness played a large part in the history of the state. The inclusion of a child in a newspaper office was interpreted equally signifying the use of child labor. Disapproval was voiced over the employ of a British flag in the Iv Freedoms painting, a hammer and sickle in the United Nations panel, and even the inclusion of a blood-red tie on ane of the figures in the same section.

Finally, groups such as the American Legion, the V.F.Due west., the D.A.R., Associated Farmers, the Young Democrats of San Francisco, the Sailors' Union, and the Society of Western Artists called for the destruction of the unabridged 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 then a representative from California, wrote a letter apropos not only the Refregier murals, but the subject area of "questionable" art in general. Dated July 18, 1949, the letter was addressed to C. Due east. Constitute, a past commissioner of an American Legion mail service in California:

I wish to give thanks you for your letter of the alphabet as to whether annihilation can be done about the removal of Communist fine art in your Federal Building [the Rincon Annex Mail Office] . . . I realize that some objectionable art, of a destructive nature, has been allowed to go into federal buildings in many parts of the country ... At such a fourth dimension as we may accept a change in the Assistants and in the majority of Congress, I believe a commission should make a thorough investigation of this type of fine art in authorities buildings with the view to obtaining removal of all that is found to be inconsistent with American ethics and principles. ^three

The most outspoken critic was Representative Hubert Scudder of California, who emphatically supported destruction of the murals. He claimed that the creative person was known to be 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 grapheme of the pioneers and history of the cracking country of California." He also mentioned that the figures were "cadaverous, soulless pioneers," involved in "sadistic scenes of riots, earthquakes, and strikes."

On March five, 1953, Scudder introduced into Congress a joint resolution (JR 211) directing "the Administrator of Full general Services to remove the mural paintings from the anteroom of the Rincon Annex Post Office Building in San Francisco." Every bit was pointed out to Scudder even before submitting the resolution, the removal of the murals would accept insured their destruction.

Back up for Scudder's pecker came from a number of local and national bourgeois groups, likewise as right-wing newspapers. Specially emphatic in their desire to have the works destroyed were editorials in the San Francisco Argonaut, a paper Scudder subsequently admitted was influential in his campaign.

An extraordinary number of responses—mayhap the most conclusive and unified of the decade—originated from individual groups and societies to defeat the measure out. Ane list of citizens opposing the resolution consisted of over 300 artists, historians, and representatives from museums, universities, and cultural groups. Amongst professional institutions opposing the resolution were the 3 major San Francisco museums, The Museum of Modernistic Art in. New York, the American Federation of Arts, and Artists' Disinterestedness. Foreign art journals and the London Times published protests; i German language art journal said that "In a land which on paper—has the best constitution in the globe, today it is becoming difficult to live, to think, and to human activity according to that constitution." The noted scientist Julian Huxley wrote to the artist:

I am much distressed about the Bill introduced by Congressman Scudder to qualify the removal of your murals in the Rincon Annex Mail service Office. This seems to me a highly injurious proposal. It is injurious because it would mean the destruction of what, to gauge from my recollection of your sketches and from reproductions of the finished murals, is a remarkable work of art, and an outstanding example of the growing trend in your state to try to exert political command over freedom of idea and expression, and to impair the liberty of the creative artist . . . The lamentable state of biology and philosophy in the The statesSouth.R. shows what happens when creative thought and expression is subjected to command on political or ideological grounds. It is most unfortunate that, just when the free world )s protesting against this grade of tyranny in the Iron Curtain countries, actions similar that of Republican Scudder are trying to introduce a similar tyranny in your great country.

Scudder's resolution was given to the Committee on Public Works, chaired by Dondero, for hearings. On May 1, 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 be reached, and the resolution was shelved. The saving of Refregier's murals represented the most of import defeat of the attempt by sure government individuals to control public artistic endeavors.

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NOTES

one. The question of whether the owner of a mural decoration has the right to destroy a completed piece of work is an of import i, and was the discipline of a famous court case in 1949 (Crimi v. Rutgers Presbyterian Church building, 89 N. Y. Southward. 2nd. 813, 194 Misc. 570, 19491. The instance developed when Alfred Crimi sued the New York church building over an unauthorized alteration of his fresco, painted earlier in 1937. The New York Supreme Court ruled confronting the artist, and expressed the stance that any artist relinquishes his rights every bit shortly as the piece of work has been sold. The New York Council of Arts, Sciences, and Professions strongly objected to this ruling in a letter published in American Artist (May, 1952, p. 71):

Nosotros artists believe that at the completion and afterward payment for monumental works of art, such works of art become the property of the people and that neither the government nor whatsoever private individual has the right to censor or destroy.

Nonetheless, according to Barnett's Hollander's The International Police of Art for Lawyers, Collectors, and Artists (London, 1959, p. 711: "The lass protects the correct of the artist to the integrity of his work. No change tin be made without his consent, whether by exchange, or add-on such as covering nudity.

2. Information technology might be recalled that in 1933, Rivera's mural in Rockefeller Center. commissioned past john D. Rockefeller, Ir., was destroyed because it had included a big portrait of Lenin.

three. Quoted in Thou. Sherman, "Dick Nixon: Art Commissar," Nation, Jan 10, 1953, p. 21. This seems to be in direct contradiction to Nixon'due south opinions when Vice-President. In 1955 Victor Arnautoff (the same creative person 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 Fine art Festival in San Francisco. Nixon wired the. Art Commission for the city that the artist has "the right to express a contrary opinion" and that "the people should not be denied full opportunity to hear or see his expression of that opinion." See Art News, October, 1955, p. 7.