Modern Art Was CIA 'Weapon'

Modern Art Was A CIA 'Weapon'?
American museum curator James J. Rorimer (1905 - 1966), Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA), uses a pocket magnifying lens to examine the Jackson Pollock painting 'Autumn Rhythm' (1950) with a magnifying lens, New York, New York, February 1959. (Photo by Walter Sanders/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
American museum curator James J. Rorimer (1905 - 1966), Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA), uses a pocket magnifying lens to examine the Jackson Pollock painting 'Autumn Rhythm' (1950) with a magnifying lens, New York, New York, February 1959. (Photo by Walter Sanders/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art -- including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko -- as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince -- except that it acted secretly -- the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

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