Art for espionage

CIA used works of American artists as a weapon in the Cold WarCIA supported modern art whose proponents in the US were once communists.

The American espionage agency’s documents of late 1940s revealed a new artistic movement. Russian art could not compete and was dismayed at the appeal communism still had for intellectuals and artists in the West.

The newly formed CIA set up the Propaganda Assets Inventory. In 1950, when International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up, it subsidised the animated version of Animal Farm. The CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.