In Response: Mr. Newberry’s CIA Weaponization of Abstract Art and its Fallout

Questions and Reflections for the painter

For those who may be unfamiliar, Michael Newberry is a much-celebrated figurative painter on Substack and elsewhere. He is also the author of several books on the subject of art, including Evolution Through Art, The Art Studio Companion, and Newberry Color Theory, among others. I have had many interactions with Michael over the past year or so and dedicated an Ekphrasis text to Michael’s painting “Hymn To The Sun”.

1000 Words: Michael Newberry's "Hymn To The Sun"

I recently read his piece CIA Weaponization of Abstract Art and its Fallout, and for the first time, I have a better understanding of his position and opinions of the many curiosities surrounding abstract art, particularly, but I cannot assume only, Abstract-Expressionism and the involvement of the CIA with its placement in the world of art as a whole. Michael has mentioned this PsyOp many times before, but this particular article feels pointed, complete, fully laid out from the standpoint of a basic narrative, in contrast with some of the more casual mentions I have read from him. I suggest giving his article a read here.

However, after reading, I felt compelled to respond. I do think there is a few opportunities for clarification and differing points of view. Michael and I have had nothing but pleasant interactions, so there is no intention on my part for a feud of any kind. Much of what I write here, Michael, you will undoubtedly be aware. But for the benefit of the reader and my position, I may occasionally state the obvious for the sake of being thorough.

Michael—it seems as though there are some base lines in your piece where there are simply facts at play, and require little wrestling. It is well-known by many, by now, that the CIA certainly played a role in the promotion of Abstract Expressionism and did so in secret. From what I can tell, this effort was used to combat and win a culture war with socialist countries through the promotion of American art. When the White House and Congress realized what this art was and looked like, fearful of the avant-garde, they shut the project down, not being particularly hip to what must have looked like absurdities on canvas. However, the CIA continued on with the project either in secret, or enough in secret to insulate and perhaps save the White House from embarrassment should the project fail. This effort, specifically, was to say, look what you can create in America, with the assumption that nothing but state propaganda could be produced in a socialist country. The irony is not lost on me that this in turn technically makes whatever art the CIA chose to promote, propaganda in and of itself. A bit like a radio station having a commercial that brags about it having no commercials.

But there is a difference here, and I think it is crucial—a question that must have an answer—is whether or not the artists were involved? Is it being suggested by you, or anyone else that Jackson Pollock’s painting practice was infiltrated by the Central Intelligence Agency? Is it being posited that Rothko was instructed to paint those squares in order to shatter the minds of those who viewed it?
Was deKooning ordered to paint those crude women to melt brains? Or was this work done of their own accord?

I have never heard anyone claim that the artists whose work was chosen or promoted being a true agent of the state. If you had asked deKooning who the CIA was, would he have been trained on what to say? This needs clarifying, at the very least.

This is crucial, because without their direct involvement, it seems as though the art was simply the art, the artists were the artists, and the CIA was, well, up to CIA stuff, and this of course gets pretty muddy when trying to piece together the actions of an agency whose entire operations are orchestrated in secret. Anything more than that, and I feel suspicious that one may be getting carried away in those muddy waters of conspiracy, not too uncommon surrounding conversations that feature the CIA.

In the essay, you quote a figure in the center of the operation, Mr. Tom Braden:

But we should also consider another quotation from Mr. Braden when asked about this orchestration:

Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.

—Tom Braden

Modern art was CIA 'weapon' Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War, Frances Saunders. Sourced from Independent Magazine.

With that, I will dispense with any further commentary about the CIA Psy-Op until, perhaps later, if needed. I would like to shift subjects to more direct art and craft related topics.

. . .

In your piece, you write:

Without irony, the CCF promoted the “American way” through the recent development of abstract art, which was nothing like the enthusiastic, optimistic, goal-directed spirit that exemplified much of American life.

On this particular passage, I am not quite sure this can be stated quite so concretely—that seems a matter of opinion. The “American way”, as well as the very idea of America was largely a celebration of the individual. The reverberations of this ideal can still be felt through many a cultural and political lens. Abstract Expressionism fits this narrative—for one, it was largely a product born out of New York City, a haven for immigration and celebration of the cultural melting pot. Secondly, many of the artists involved were immigrants themselves—Rothko was from Latvia, deKooning from Rotterdam, Gorky from Armenia, etc. But more so, Abstract Expressionism can also be considered a breakthrough movement in art movements themselves; Cubism, Impressionism, Pointillism and even surrealism largely and clearly had pronounced aesthetic themes running throughout. These movements and styles relied upon a shared aesthetic. Whereas Abstract Expressionism was a mode, a concept. You cannot find paintings inside the same movement that are more dissimilar than a Kline to a Rothko to a Pollock. I think this also speaks to the individual voice that the movement tries to describe and celebrate. There were certainly aspects to the painting of Ab-Ex that could be channeled to and from the American Way. Specifically, another American-made art form, Jazz, was definitely holding hands with what the painters were up to. This can be seen in the various paintings featured on many Jazz album covers. I won’t pick it apart anymore than that, except to say that the subgenre of Ab-Ex, “Action painting” could certainly get away with calling itself enthusiastic, if it wanted to.

Charles Mingus’ album cover featuring the work of S. Neil Fujita, 1959

Thelonious Monk, “Genius of Modern Music Vol. 2”, Paul Bacon, 1952

In your piece, you juxtapose two pieces by Rembrandt with a Jackson Pollock painting typical of the drip paintings he is known for. All well and good here—but what one instantly notices is the generous nature of your words when talking about Rembrandt and all that can be gathered from your Pollock dismissal is that, it turns out, you just don’t really like it for the reason that it doesn’t pictorially resemble any objective reality. You reject the term abstract art, referring to it as an oxymoron—I can use the term non-objective painting interchangeably, if it avoids a semantic quibble.

Rembrandt, A woman Bathing, 1654, National Gallery, London

In discussing the Rembrandt piece above you write:

We can imagine a warfighter shoring up his confidence by recalling this image, or something like it, which, in turn, spurs him on, knowing he is fighting a just cause.

This is beautiful imagery, but perhaps a bit generous. Are soldiers at war really battling on for the sake of Rembrandt’s deftly illustrated pictures? Perhaps, but the painting could also remind the fighter of his wife that has just died, and he goes and jumps off a bridge. We cannot predetermine pictorial interpretations—that fact, too, speaks to the power of art. One man’s optimism is another man’s forlorn memory. There is no universality in reception.

Jackson Pollock’s No. 5, 1948

For Pollock you write:

Pollock used house paint to literally pour, drip, and splatter the paint. There are no shadows, no light, no forms, no depth, and no conceptual use of color. There is a weird negation of ends and means; the painting’s subject is drips of paint through the means of dripping paint. Enough to turn any mind stupid.

I suppose some of this is correct—I would say there are no shadows, nor any depiction of actual light. But there are differing tones at play. But no forms? There are no bodily forms, if that is what you are getting at, but I think there are forms, a depth in the layering. I don’t know what is required by you in terms of a conceptual use of color, but the painting certainly contains a mixture of colors—a concept of a kind, that required a decision by the maker, one way or another. (note: about decisions, Pollock spent decades painting in oil, but chose house paint because the viscosity of the liquid allowed for the flow he desired in the later drip paintings). Clearly, your use of language was more efforted and generous towards Rembrandt. One could, without much straining, lend the same type of generous prose to an Ab-Ex piece. You suggest that it is not truly a work of art, but I must ask, is it not, at least, a painting? If your stance is that paintings can only be done with brushes that depict objects or scenes, then we are really just begging the Pollock, non-objective question all over again. In Pollock’s own words:

New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements…the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.

I did notice that you were very intentional in your attribution of Rembrandt’s two pieces. Titles, sizes, medium, date and collection information are all properly sourced and included. But Pollock’s painting was not labeled at all, but referred to by Pollock’s name in the text. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, as if to suggest a painting by Jackson Pollock is not worthy of its own attribution, or it merely slipped your mind. But I do know that a crucial bit of information was omitted by the anonymity—the Pollock in question is No. 5, painted in 1948. 1948!

The Rembrandt works were done in 1654 and 1630. Nearly three hundred years apart from the Pollock. This length of time suggests the expectation of change. This information, the date of the work, is another crucial element needed to properly discuss whatever comparing and contrasting one would like to mention.

Is it your suggestion that in the here and now, we should all be painting like Rembrandt? Only Rembrandt could paint like Rembrandt, so his genius can only serve as an example of genius, not a standard by which to measure art a third of a millennia later, in my estimation.

What I must say, is that I find your piece somewhat disheartening by what it may allow for, and what it omits. Ever since its inception, Abstract art has befuddled the masses—if it not a face or tree or sun or moon, then just phony artists throwing paint around because they cannot do any better. There is some of that today, just as there is cruddy portraiture that do make use of form, light, shadow, etc., but are in no way comparable to a Rembrandt. Abstract art is for talentless hacks is the popular idea here, and your article gives shelter (perhaps unwittingly) to that idea, and with the added benefit that it comes from a figurative painter as talented as you are. Abstract artists can’t make the real stuff, are more con artists than artists, it is said. But we often can, and we often do. This is for the benefit of the reader, I know you know this:

Judson Vereen, Blue Landscape (2021), oil on board and Caesar, pencil on paper, 2021,

Willem de Kooning, Untitled IV, 1982, oil on canvas, and Portrait of Elaine, 1940-1941

Jackson Pollock, Untitled, colored pencil and graphite on paper, circa 1945

Why would artists who can illustrate on this level ever consider non-objective art? Because art doesn’t end there.

Modern Art has long been the punching bag of many; so much so, that the phrase itself has practically become a by-name for “that which I don’t like”. A recent comment on your article highlights this perfectly—

“I never understood the appeal of modern art. It looks shit”

I have to say, saying modern art looks like shit is a bit like saying “I don’t like the taste of liquids.” The sentence itself is not really doing what the commenter thinks it does. I only mention it because so often the people who claim to detest abstraction, Modern Art, etc., so freely give away how little they know about it or are willing to learn. It is interesting when a thoroughly knowledgeable person comes to the same conclusion as those who know nothing—emphasizing here, that a reader with pre-disposed suspicions about non-objective painting, Modern Art, Ab-Ex etc., will throw it all into the CIA-money laundering-bullshit bin.

People are so befuddled by these ideas they often don’t know what to say—but by now, they know they can say a five year old kid could have done that and feel clever about it. Perhaps, that is a stance you would like to encourage around these categories of art as a whole—I don’t know, but you haven’t said anything that would prove that impossible. One gets the sense throughout the reading of your piece that you take much of this quite personally, and that is something I sympathize with, as I take the same route.

I think you are right about the power of art. In so many ways, you articulate this in a breathtakingly beautiful way, not to mention the extraordinary power of your paintings, which require no commentary—they are self-evidently remarkable. But the power of art is not simply limited to the pursuit of portraying physical objects accurately, dramatically or beautifully. There are powers in shapes, forms, line, and juxtaposition. Tension is not only portrayed in portraiture, etc. but in the dynamics of shapes, which are, of course, limitless and infinite. Nature is often the source of these elements, too. We marvel at the marbling of clouds along a sun drenched sky—the condensation inside them, the actual fog, is far less interesting than the seemingly random dance they make along a sunset. Art does not stop at academic rendering—Why? Because of course, it can’t. When we hear birds sing, we don’t worry about the notes they make or if they can read music—we can, after all, just enjoy the sound. It reminds me of another quote:

“If people would just look at the paintings, I don't think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It's like looking at a bed of flowers, you don't tear your hair out over what it means.”

—Jackson Pollock

If we can omit the term art, for just one moment, and forget the gallery, forget the museums, forget all existential heroes and the art world as a whole, there still is the physical act of swiping color across the void. We may find value in the meditative nature of that act as we set to do it ourselves—as many do with the act of sweeping the dust on the floor with a broom. In that state, the artist has every right, in my mind, to lose sight and forget about what is good or expected, and let what is, in the here and now, calm the artist’s soul. In this way, it is not just what is produced in the end, but also the act of doing that the artist may find some liberation, some solace in this world that is forever stirring us up into a frenzy. And I don’t say this because the CIA melted my brain, or because Pollock made me stupid—but that is, once again, something you probably already knew.

Best regards to you, Michael—and good luck with your space series. It is coming along splendidly!

Your friend,

JSV

p.s. I have not responded to every aspect of your original article, but tried to hit the key notes of it.

Author in Los Angeles, photo by Tyler Sharkey

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