page_title: American National Exhibition
section_title: The first American artist
hierarchical_section_title: American National Exhibition / Art controversies / The first American artist
caption_attribution_description: English: Joseph Raymond McCarthy
context_page_description: The American National Exhibition was an exhibition of American art, fashion, cars, capitalism, model homes and futuristic kitchens that attracted 3 million visitors to its Sokolniki Park, Moscow venue during its six-week run. The Cold War event is historic for the Nixon-Khrushchev "kitchen debate" held first at the model kitchen table, outfitted by General Electric, and then continued in the color television studio where it was broadcast to both countries, with each leader arguing the merits of his system, and a conversation that "escalated from washing machines to nuclear warfare."
  But the event is equally renowned for its art exhibition, which included such celebrated artists as sculptors Robert Laurent, Ibram Lassaw and Isamu Noguchi and painters Hyman Bloom, Jackson Pollock and Edward Hopper in an art show coordinated by the United States Information Agency. Prior to the exhibition, the House Un-American Activities Committee threatened to remove many of the artists who had been accused of links to communist activities. After President Eisenhower intervened, however, the exhibition went on as planned.
  Interpretations of the event are mixed.
context_section_description: Relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. began to thaw again in the 1950s, even while red-baiting continued to dominate the American discourse. In 1953, the artist Rockwell Kent, a former member of the Socialist Party of America and a one-time Congressional candidate for the American Labor Party, was questioned by Joseph R. McCarthy. He and William Gropper were the only two visual artists ever called before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations on Government Operations. Like Gropper, Kent refused to confirm or deny his political status on Fifth Amendment grounds. 
  In 1957, Kent became NCASF chairman, as well as "the first postwar American artist to be granted a solo exhibition in the Soviet Union."  The Soviets promoted him, even while many American government officials remained suspicious: "The opening reception at the Pushkin Museum on December 12 was attended by prominent figures from the Moscow art community and representatives of the U.S. Embassy," but Kent was not given a passport to attend the opening.  Yet the American show in the U.S.S.R. attracted attention, traveling first to the State Hermitage Museum ... before continuing on to ... Kiev, Riga, and Odessa, attracting a reported half-million visitors.
caption: Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, photographed in 1954, asked Rockwell Kent whether he was a communist. HUAC later investigated the other 67 artists invited to exhibit their work in the American National Exhibition.
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