When Harry Met Pablo

 

When Harry Met Pablo: Truman, Picasso, and the Cold War Politics of Modern Art by Matthew Algeo  256 pp.

From the time of the creation of "Modern Art" it has created controversy. Many spoke out against it calling it "garbage, untalented, ugly, subversive, and Communist." There were movements among the art world against it. There were also movements by government officials who came just short of wanting it banned. Harry Truman was admittedly one of those who didn't like it. But at least he agreed artists had the right to create what they pleased. After Truman was no longer in office, Alfred H. Barr, one of the founders of New York's MOMA managed to engineer a meeting between Truman and Picasso that included a photo op. It all took place during a tour of the Mediterranean by Harry & Bess Truman and his former advisor, Sam Rosenman, and his wife Dorothy. The President who was responsible for the use of the atomic bomb and the Communist artist who created the anti-war masterpiece Guernica had a amicable  meeting. Picasso showed the Trumans his studio and the pottery where he also created art. While there is no recordings of their conversations, it was a civil meeting. However, it didn't change Truman's opinion of Picasso's art. I listened to the audiobook which drove me slightly crazy because of mispronunciations of artist's names, locations, and other words that should have been corrected in editing. 

Mark Rothko: toward the Light in the Chapel / Annie Cohen-Solal 282 pp.

Another Yale University Press title from the Jewish Lives series.  This was originally written in French and translated, as far as I can tell, by the author.  Rothko's story is interesting and multi-faceted, from boyhood in a shtetl in present-day Latvia complete with Talmudic school,  adolescence in Portland, Oregon, to New York artist.  And after reading, I may now be able to look at a Rothko painting and say something besides, "Hunh.  Colored stripes."  But I can't tell if the author simply tried to cover too much in too little space, or if she simply should have allowed someone else to translate, but the text feels full of holes.  Part of the problem is certainly the difficulty in writing about a non-verbal creative process.  An added shortcoming is that long stretches read more like a history of 20th century American art rather than the story of one man.  A book this length requires greater focus, or maybe simply a different focus.