Modern Art and Oral History in the United States: A Revolution Remembered

Abstract

In 1943 art dealer Paul Rosenberg learned the distressing news that a major collection of modern art, including works by painters represented in his prestigious Manhattan gallery, would be sold at auction, most likely at prices significantly below the values Rosenberg had established. was most concerned about the fate of the Georges Braque paintings because he had a sizable investment in Braque's work. sacrificed several American modernist paintings at below-market prices to obtain quick cash for purchasing the Braque work before it went to the auction block. Max Weber, one of the American painters whose prices were slashed, felt betrayed. He didn't lift a finger to protect me, Weber recalled, that was the word he used when he invited me to join his gallery -he would be my protector. Weber broke with Rosenberg in a well-publicized and acrimonious dispute. prices and prestige had to be maintained at any cost; consequently reduction of American prices was the more practical and profitable [course] for him. As long as American modernism was institutionally connected to French art, he concluded, American painters had little likelihood of securing either a public or respect.' In this same period, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still began telling colleagues and students that American painters had nothing to learn from the European moderns. Clay Spohn, a student of Fernand LUger's in the 1920s, remembered that he was shocked when he first heard their argument. Then, with a profound sense of release, he embraced it. surveyed nearly twenty years of work, both as a muralist in the Federal Art Project and as an independent modernist, and concluded that his lessons in Paris had led him to strive for an idealized, elegant perfection at the cost of spon-