Official portraits of past CIA directors line another wall. The running theme of most art in the headquarters is that it’s somehow about the CIA.
#DOT BY DOT ABSTRACT ART COST MOVIE#
One hallway features the eerie “Intelligence Art Collection,” which “celebrates historical accomplishments in intelligence.” Here, paintings of warplanes resemble action movie concept art, while other works look like Norman Rockwell painted a child’s fantasy about becoming a spy. The Melzac Collection makes up only a small chunk of the CIA’s eclectic decor. Joby Barron, “Gene Davis, Black Rhythm” (2016) On these walls, the intersection between US art and politics is especially busy. What these paintings represent about the CIA’s relationship to the art world, though, is more complicated. Eighteen more paintings were loaned in 2000 and then returned to the Melzac Estate last year. The original 11 paintings still hang on the walls of the agency’s headquarters, “represent an elemental approach to art a swashbuckling donor,” according to a brief blurb on the agency’s website.
In 1988, the agency purchased 11 of these paintings from Melzac. All were by artists affiliated with the Washington Color School, a post-war movement based in DC, known for their stripes, polka dots, and color fields on canvas.
#DOT BY DOT ABSTRACT ART COST SERIES#
In 1968, notorious art collector Vincent Melzac - who was also a catfish farm owner, salon chain magnate, Arabian race horse breeder, and former Corcoran Gallery chief - loaned a series of abstract paintings to the CIA. Colonial-era maps of Langley, Virginia hang on the walls next to lists of prohibited things, which include weapons, cameras, cell phones, and “disturbances.” On a rainy Saturday morning, I sat flipping through “The Meat Issue,” waiting to tour the CIA’s collection of abstract art. Near the table, bulletproof glass shields a reception desk. WASHINGTON, DC - The magazine selection in the visitors’ waiting room at the George Bush Center for Intelligence has a pretty narrow focus: Atop a small wood table sit copies of Hunting Magazine, American Rifleman (cover story: “A Tribute to Antonin Scalia”), and Outdoor Life: The Meat Issue. 1960), detail (Image by the author for Hyperallergic)
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