“Cubism seeks to destroy by designed disorder… Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule… Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of brainstorms.”
(Republican Congressman George Dondero in speech to the House of Representatives, August 16, 1949)

Three years later, Dondero told Congress that modern art was nothing other than a “conspiracy by Moscow to spread Communism” in his country. It’s no surprise, then, that the FBI files on Picasso include a document market “SECRET” that features Dondero’s wild accusations. The congressman rages against “so-called modern art” which “contains all the isms of depravity, decadence and destruction.”

(Annie Cohen-Solal, Picasso the Foreigner, translated from the French by Sam Taylor, 2021)

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