>>5835681 LB
benglis....
other than her background and other tidbits...
https://www.moma.org/artists/471
sked to summarize her artistic ambitions in the 1960s, Lynda Benglis replied, “I wasn’t breaking away from painting but trying to redefine what it was.”1 She was raised in Louisiana and moved to New York in 1964, where she trained as a painter in the Abstract Expressionist vein. Benglis admired the gestural style of that older generation of artists, but quickly began to adapt their methods to more extravagant ends. Employing a broad range of materials in acid hues, her best-known works record the behavior of a fluid substance in action.
https://medium.com/@MichaelMcBride/how-jackson-pollock-and-the-cia-teamed-up-to-win-the-cold-war-6734c40f5b14
More than that, abstract expressionism was fundamentally American. Born in New York City, there was nothing else like it in the world. There was a “cowboy” element to it — Jackson Pollock, for instance, was born on a sheep farm in Cody Wyoming, slinging paint from the hip like a six-shooter. It was loud, brash, unrefined, and unapologetic — much like America.
However, due to the aforementioned ban instituted by the State Department, this abstract-expressionism had to be supported in covert through several degrees of separation. Soon, the CIA found the ideal conduit for resources: the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Nelson Rockefeller, president of the museum (and son of its founder) had various agency and government connections. He was Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA) in WW2, heading the wartime intelligence agency for Latin America. He was a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a New York think tank subcontracted by the government to study foreign affairs (and through which much of the CIA’s financial support of the new art would be laundered).
He would go on to be appointed Eisenhower’s special advisor on Cold War strategy, chair a committee overseeing CIA covert operations, and eventually become Governer and Vice President.
The Museum’s board was a who’s who of CIA connections. William Burden chaired the CIA’s Farfield Foundation. Rene D’Hanoncourt worked with the CIAA and reported regularly to the State Department. Nearly everyone involved at the museum had government connections, whether in the State Department, Foreign Service, or CIA.
In 1952, the CIA, through the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, gave MoMA a five year grant to fund the “International Program”, loaning out so many of the museum’s paintings to European entities that New Yorkers began to complain of an emptied museum. By 1956, 33 full international exhibitions had been organized for abstract expressionism; a remarkable feat.