The Soviet and Stalinist Works of the Michell Wolfson Jr. Collection

Abstract

This paper offers a survey of the Soviet propaganda works collected by Mitchell (Micky) Wolfson Jr. since there 1980s and now preserved at the Wolfsonian—FIU (Florida International University) in Miami Beach and at the Wolfsoniana—Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura in Genoa. The first collection to include the art of the regimes in a larger panorama of cultural production, the Wolfsonian offers, through a critical interpretation of the Soviet propaganda works within linguistic pluralism, a clear and immediate visual narrative of the history of the twentieth century.

1. Introduction

A critical investigation into the Soviet propaganda works collected by Mitchell (Micky) Wolfson Jr. cannot disregard a comparison with the overall historical, cultural, and artistic approach that marked his peculiar and exclusive collection, preserved now at the Wolfsonian—FIU (Florida International University) in Miami Beach and at the Wolfsoniana—Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura in Genoa (Kaplan 1995–1996; Fochessati and Franzone 2016)1. Wolfson was among the first private collectors in the 1980s who promoted a complexed vision of international propaganda art, including the experience of the Soviet Union, as an integral part of twentieth century history, opening the perspectives that were explored later in research and exhibition projects worldwide. Even though the collection is well known by 20th century art scholars and interested members of the public worldwide, its Russian and Soviet items have never been studied as a special subject and are almost unknown in Russia. This article traces the Soviet propaganda works within the whole collection and reconstructs Wolfson’s chosen philosophy and its reflection in the research and curatorial practices.

2. Reasons and Complexity of the Collection

An articulate and complex art collection, such as the one ordered by Wolfson since the 1980s, over the course of more than four decades of research and study, presupposes that choices have been made and priorities arranged in accordance with specific selection criteria. Therefore the method and cultural approach that guided Wolfson’s choices appear to be an essential starting point to analyze the contents of each individual section of his extensive collection, which—consisting of a vast typology of materials (paintings, sculptures, furniture, complete furnishings, glassware, ceramics, wrought iron, silverware, textiles, architectural drawings, graphics, posters and advertising materials, sketches and drawings, books and magazines)—proposes in its linguistic pluralism a clear and immediate visual narrative of the history of the twentieth century.

With these words, John Barry, a “Miami Herald” reporter who published a series of articles on the Wolfsonian in 1992 (three years before the opening of the museum in Miami Beach), described the collection genesis: «As he travels, Wolfson collects, a hobby that began during boyhood trips with his parents, when he started what is said to be the largest key ring in the world, bearing more than 5000 keys to hotel rooms and ocean-liner cabins» (Barry 1992a) and later he «traveled across Europe on personal scavenger hunts for old books, furniture, machines, figurines, glassware, even pieces of building» (Barry 1992b).

Indeed, for Wolfson, objects hold the same cognitive authority as the written word, and each tells a particular segment of a grand narrative fresco, through which one can reconstruct the complexity and salient episodes of a historical period that shaped the contemporary era. Even if the Wolfsoniana is rather entirely composed of Italian material and the Wolfsonian has “a strong emphasis on America, Italy and Britain, the three countries in which Micky—as he is generally known—was initially most interested” (Skipwith 2006), the geographical criteria are not dominant, but are complementary to the value of the meaning of the collected objects and to their role within the global history of ideas. In the Genoa collection, there are also items from Hungary, Germany, Spain and Austria, and in Miami those “from Asia, Australia, and South America” […] and some, originating from China and India, “represent relatively isolated ‘exception to the rule’” (Hoffman 2002a).

Within this approach, Wolfson’s interest for Russian art and material culture2 in general is not moved by any specific reason; for that, the collection differs from other Russian art collections. It is not moved by the attraction to an exotic culture (as in case of the Russian Kokoshniki (traditional headdresses) collection of George Wurts and Henrietta Tower, now in the Museum of Palazzo Venezia, Rome) (Tonini 2019), to a specific genre or style (as Russian Imperial art of the Marjorie Merriweather Post collection in the Hillwood Museum, Washington, DC, USA), to a professional interest (as in case of the collection of Richard Hare, a scholar of Russian Art and Literature, in the Dorich Museum, London), or a research of personal cultural roots (Wolfson has no Russian ancestors).

Every collection predestined for musealization reflects, regardless of the collector’s original intuitions, a peculiar and specific definition of the art object and its function in terms of public enjoyment. Consciously or unconsciously, each of the collector’s decisions and each of his operational choices cannot but depend on a programmatic theoretical construction: a project that, of course, often evolves and develops over time, pandering to the turns and insights accrued by the collector through contacts, research, and travel, or—in more structured fields from the outset, as in the case of the Wolfson collection—from discussions with his staff and, in particular, with his curators or advisors: Matteo Fochessati and Gianni Franzone in Italy and Wendy Kaplan, Marianne Lamonaca, and Silvia Barisione in Miami. Concerning Russian art, Wolfson has no single consultant: all the works were acquired by the collector himself from international dealers, galleries, and private sellers or during his journey to the Soviet Union and to Russia, with the guidance of local museum curators, art historians, and antique shops or collectors.

3. Collection within and beyond Political Construction

Collecting also appears (and even more pertinently with respect to the topic discussed here) to be a political act, especially if the collector’s goals and interests clash with current tastes or the mental conformity of one’s era. The collector’s critical sense, when inspired by a peculiar philosophy and organized through a personal linguistic vocabulary, can help make his collection not a mere aggregation of objects, but a thorough analysis of the past and a timely reflection on the present.

“I do not collect art for art’s sake, but art as a function of ideas” this is the motto that has led Wolfson’s collecting choices for years, who—in addition to documenting the evolution of design at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries from the handcrafted virtuosity of the unique piece to the structural simplification of serial production—has promoted the collection of artworks, artifacts, and testimonies of political propaganda, with a particular focus on the dictatorial regimes of the first half of the 20th century and, more specifically, Italian fascism, German Nazism, and the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.

Wolfson’s propaganda collection, as has been already stated, makes part of a broader chronological and thematical section of different geographical areas and, of course, is not a unique phenomenon. It can be compared with others, such as the Estorick collection of Modern Italian Art in London (which has no propaganda items but is affine to the topic, see: Barisione et al. 2002) or those of the Massimo and Sonia Cirulli Foundation in Bologna, as well as the public collections of modern art museums worldwide (MoMA in New York, National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, Museo del Novecento in Milan, MART in Trento-Rovereto, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, and The State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg). These museums contain works by the authors involved in propaganda art and media production (e.g., Mario Sironi, Carlo Carrà or Massimo Campigli), which, in major cases, do not represent the propaganda subjects.

The transversal and transnational approach of Wolfson to propaganda art now does not seem unusual and is widely shared by scholars and curators (we will return to them later); for example, Russian and English art historian Igor Golomstok’s book Totalitarian Art: In the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the People’s Republic of China was published in 1990 in New York (Golomstok 1990). However, in the early 1980s when Wolfson defined the structure and direction of his collection, propaganda art studies were still separated by the “Iron Curtan” of political boarders and convictions, when “the age of totalitarianism and war have been tabooed, disregarded, or else looked at only from specialized aspects” and “memories […] were differed too widely; the ideological pressures of present were too strong”3. Also in this case, as we have already mentioned, Wolfson was guided by his intellectual intuition and was not directly influenced by the scholarship on the argument.

The Wolfson collection also houses (as mentioned and is important to underline) works of art from Italy, Germany, and Russia that are not specifically related to propaganda. In particularly, concerning Russian art, the Wolfsonian—FIU features some examples of previous productions in the field of decorative arts and publishing: a mirror by Aleksei Prokof’evich Zinoviev—dated 1903 and made by the furniture workshop at the Talashkino artists colony near Smolensk (Inv. N. XX1990.1283, Figure 1)—which represents a significant example of the spirit of the Russian Romantic Nationalism that found expression in forms of Stil’ Modern (Russian analogue for Art Nouveau); or the book Skazka o tsare Saltane (The tale of Tsar Saltan) by Aleksander Sergeyevich Pushkin and illustrated by Ivan Yakovievich Bilibin—active member of the Mir iskusstva (“World of Art”), which is an association of Russian artists and writers that proposed a renewal of Russian art aimed at the artistic experiences of the great European capitals, marked by art nouveau and symbolism—and published in 1905 by the Department for the Production of State Documents of St. Petersburg.

Even in the Genoa collection there are Russian books and portfolios from the pre-Revolution period, including the recently acquired Atlas Aziatskoj Rossii (Atlas of Asiatic Russia. A publication of the Resettlement Department of the Chief Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture, St. Petersburg, 1914; The Michell Wolfson Jr. Private Collection, Genoa-Miami, on loan at the Wolfsoniana—Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura, Genoa; Figure 2).

This rare publication is an important testimony to Russian colonial history containing 72 maps (including 30 on double pages) and published in St. Petersburg by the publisher A. F. Marx at the behest of the Department of Resettlement of the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture. The publication analyzed the reforms instigated by Pyotr Arkad’evič Stolypin (Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister of the Russian Empire from 21 July 1906 to 18 September 1911 during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II) which, between 1906 and 1914, moved millions of people from European Russia to Siberia and the Russian regions of Central Asia. These reforms, which, analyzed in the volume through maps and diagrams, were aimed at reducing poverty and controlling the political discontent that was beginning to flare up within the empire led to the fortification of new cities and significant economic growth. In 1912, this led to Russia becoming the world’s largest producer of grain, surpassing Argentina, the United States, and Canada in this respect.

As a record of the cultural transitions between Russia and the colonies is a watercolor and ink drawing for the Bedroom in the Villa Bobrinsky near to Moscow (Figure 3), designed in 1903 by Eliel Saarinen (1873–1950), father of the famous Finnish architect Eero Saarinen and, in that moment, Russian subject. It is an outstanding example of the importance of the “Northen” National Romanticism and Art Nouveau on Russian art of the early 20th c. (Lisovsky 2016), a kind of inverted influence, when the colonies influenced the center.

Wolfson’s choice of Russian art objects has no preferences for chronological period (within the collection’s chronological frames 1870–1945) or affinity to any artistic movement. As part of the collection, like any other items with different geographical provenience, they serve as testimonies of the their time and the ideas that they reflected.

The wide and varied field of propaganda works and documents from different and even enemy states and regimes has always represented and still represents the most problematic and controversial part of the Wolfson collection and for the activities of the two institutions in charge of the preservation, research, and study of its art collections. The broad spectrum of political manifestations documented by his collection, however, rules out ideological misunderstandings of the collector’s real goals from the outset. Through analysis of the languages and forms of communication of different models of totalitarianism—despite the fact that his collection also includes forms of persuasion pertaining to structures of democratic governments (as in the case of the governmental actions of the New Deal, which, after the crisis of 1929, gave millions of people in the United States jobs in the construction of public works)—Wolfson in fact intended to demonstrate the expressive and methodological convergences that unite all consensus-building exercises (Greengard 1984; Greengard 1984–1985; Lamonaca and Schleuning 2004).

The same spirit had guided the publication of two monographic issues devoted to Russia of “The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts” published in Miami by the Wolfsonian. The Summer 1987 Russian/Soviet Theme Issue (5) (Figure 4), edited by English art historian John E. Bowlt (the most prominent Western scholar of Russian Avant Guard), offered an initial overview of the subject through articles such as The Decorative Arts in Russian Architecture: 1900–1907 by American historian and photographer William Brunfield; Experiments in Book Design by Russian Artists by Evgenii Kovtun, modern art historian and curator of Russian Museum in Saint Peterburg; The Psychology of Urban Design in the 1920s and 1930s by Boris Brodsky, Moscow art historian; Lamps and Architecture by Abram Damsky, a Soviet designer, graduate from the VKhUTEIN (Higher State Art Technical Institute) and disciple of Vladimir Tatlin, the key-figure of Russian Avant Garde; and Stage Design and Ballet Russes by Bowlt himself.

This collection of texts on Russian and Soviet art, both by Western and Soviet scholars, was supplemented in winter 1989 by the Russian/Soviet Theme Issue II (11) which, again edited by Bowlt, analyzed Russian and Soviet design. Starting with the analysis of folk art as the key to investigating Russian decorative arts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the journal then addresses Soviet design production in articles such as Soviet Propaganda Porcelain by Russian decorative art historian Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky and Experimental Furniture Design in the 1920s by designer and Russian Avant Garde historian Alexander Lavrentiev.

This well-documented analysis (rather singular for that time and, undoubtedly, possible thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization policy of perestroika) of artistic research in Russia and, then, in the Soviet Union at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reflected] one of the main themes addressed by the collection; namely, the transition from decorative arts to industrial arts and, thus, the gradual downsizing in this sphere of the role of artisans and craftsmen and the increasing responsibility attributed, from the first half of the twentieth century onward, in this evolution of production processes to architects and designers. This theme is also found in the context of the coeval Italian art scene in a common recognition of modernity as the primary and ideal model for representing the spirit of the age. And yet—as is well evidenced by the variety of materials in the collection and its peculiar cross-perspective slant that, within a homogeneous discourse, sets out to analyze a broad spectrum of disciplines and aesthetic approaches—a programmatic dichotomy manifested itself in the propaganda of both regimes. On the one hand, this advocated the modernization of the nation and, on the other, the preservation of national traditions, in a continuous oscillation between revolutionary Avant Garde experiments and classicist re-evocations.

This internal cultural dualism of the political propaganda of the major dictatorial regimes is analyzed within the Wolfson collection in the field of decorative arts and design as a peculiar form of mediation between classicism and functionalism; however, it is also investigated in all other possible stylistic and iconographic forms of expression. It should also be noted that the debate on modernity was generally instrumental in the evolution of brilliant and innovative designs. Within that framework, the emerging aesthetic forms of new means of transportation and communication are documented. Indeed, the modern technological settings of ocean liners, airplanes, and railroad vehicles and their adaptation to innovative design, which embodied their characters of solidity and dynamism, appear celebrated in the figurative artwork, graphics, and publishing of the period.

Also, Bowlt was the author of the article Stalin as Isis and Ra: Socialist Realism and the Art of Design, published in 2002 in “The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts” (issue 24 (Hoffman 2002b), focusing on the Stalin era and documented with several works from the collections of the Wolfsonian in Miami. As Bowlt wrote, Socialist Realism with a predetermined syntax of images, attitudes, and captions «was formulaic, “interdisciplinary”, and easily applied to any material surface and any national tradition» (Bowlt 2002). At that moment, the Stalin era of visual art already became a legitimate field of academic investigation, with numerous published books and exhibitions curated by notorious scholars (see bibliography in Bowlt 2002, p. 35, note 2). But, as Bowlt underlined, “these endeavors have focused on literature and the “high” arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, whereas the ‘minor’ arts of everyday life have been neglected”. The Wolfsonian’s collection, in reverse, is focusing on objects that were not taken into consideration for a long time by the scholarship. Also, because of their controversial nature, sometimes they were and still are “the frequent target of ridicule or abuse” (Bowlt 2002) and sometimes they become a kind of fetish for nostalgia for “strong regime”.

This “total” nature of the Stalin era’s cultural project is evident in two works belonging to the Wolfsonian’s collection: the Tapestry with Portrait of Stalin, a traditional Turkmenian woolen rug with the face of Stalin as the centerpiece, made in 1936 by the Artistic Experimental Workshop Goskoverfond of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Figure 5), and a porcelain and gilt plate commemorating the first flight of the Soviet North Line, made in 1935 by the Dulevo porcelain factory (The Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Collection, The Wolfsonian—FIU, Miami Beach).

Since Stalin was not particularly interested in visual arts—his collected writings make no reference to painting, and, as Bowlt remembered, it is rumored that he never set foot inside the Tretyakov Gallery (even Mussolini boasted that he had entered a museum “at most twice”4)—more than simply documenting the fine arts of Socialist Realism, the Wolfsonian collection documents the massive presence of propaganda in daily life and the fundamental contribution of graphics as principal vehicles of political persuasion. This is evident, for example, in the celebratory aesthetical approach of the posters Khleb nasha sila, interventam mogila: Sobirai urazhai (Bread is Our Strength, (and) the Interventionist’s Grave: Gather the Harvest) designed in 1931 by Dmitri Stakhievich Moor (TD1994.29.1, Figure 6) and USSR Agricultural Exhibition 1939 by Viktor Klimashin, devoted to the states’ collectivization in agriculture (85.4.108, Figure 7).

It is further evident by the contributions of some eminent artists of the Avant Garde, such as as El Lissitzky, author of the 1935 exhibition catalogue (with metal spine and edging) Industriia sotsalizma (The Industry of Socialism; XC1991.64), or Varvara Stepanova who designed the cover of the 1932 portfolio Ot Moskvy kupecheskoi k Moskve sotsialisticheskoi (From Merchant Moscow to Socialist Moscow; (The Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Collection, The Wolfsonian—FIU, Miami Beach).

Corresponding to this vision of the collector are the collections held at the two institutions he founded between 1986 and 1987 to preserve, promote, enhance, and study the works he collected during his travels around the world. Although they are now administratively distinct (the Wolfsonian in Miami was donated in 1997 to FIU, the Wolfsoniana was donated in 2007 to the public administrations of Genoa from Liguria and currently belongs to and is managed by Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura), the two museums and research centers continue to collaborate through shared exhibitions and by publishing initiatives, reflecting a common adherence to a single original project.

What distinguishes the two collections is mainly the fact that the Miami museum presents a broader international scope in its collections, while the one in Genoa appears mainly focused on the Italian context5, although it also documents significant foreign fields of research. With respect to Soviet political identity in the historical period under consideration, few works and documents are preserved at the Wolfsoniana which, nevertheless, reveal the peculiarities of the collector’s cultural and aesthetic interests. We find, for example, a metal plaque depicting Boris Iofan’s Pavillon de l’Urss, surmounted by Vera Mukhina’s statue of The Worker and the Kolkhoznitsa, for the 1937 Exposition Internationale “Arts et Techniques dans la Vie moderne” in Paris (87.623.19.1; Figure 8).

A mere souvenir of the event, the object nevertheless reveals itself as a valuable document of the time because of the propaganda charge that the Soviet pavilion, placed opposite the Nazi pavilion designed by Albert Speer, took on at the Paris International Exposition. Moreover, this object reconnects all commemorative material (postcards, pins, souvenirs, catalogs, brochures, ephemera) related to the Great Universal Exhibitions preserved in the archives of the Wolfsoniana.

Three other different models of memorabilia are represented by the iridescent glazed bust of Lenin, produced with the usual luminescence of enamels by the Hungarian Szolnay manufactory in Pecs in the early 1960s (The Michell Wolfson Jr. Private Collection, Genoa-Miami, on loan at Wolfsoniana—Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura, Genoa; Figure 9); the acrylic fiber flag dated around the 1980’s with the inscription “To the struggle for the mission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Be ready” (GX1993.327); and a plate with the effigy of the Russian leader and the inscription «Proletarians of the world unite», issued by the Czechoslovakian manufacturer Bohemia in 1970 on the centenary of Lenin’s birth (The Michell Wolfson Jr. Private Collection, Genoa-Miami, on loan at Wolfsoniana—Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura, Genoa; Figure 10).

These works, moreover, lie outside the chronological span that Wolfson originally set for his collection; namely, the complex and crucial historical period between 1885 and 1945. To explain the sixty-year framework for the collection, the Wolfsonian’s 1995 exhibition catalogue, Designing Modernity, defined 1885 as «the age of New Imperialism, the peak of Europe’s political and economic hegemony over the rest of the world»6; the collection’s theoretical end date of 1945 is linked to the conclusion of World War II and, naturally, to the collapse of the Nazi and Fascist regimes.

In setting up his art collection, Wolfson had thought to circumscribe it chronologically within an eventful era that saw the outbreak of two world wars and the Russian Revolution, but also the rise and fall of various dictatorial regimes, the advent of new forms of colonization, and the announcement of later forms of decolonization. In recent times, Wolfson has repeatedly announced that perhaps he should have extended the scope of his collection beyond 1945 to encompass the Cold War period, ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Although Wolfson continued to stick to the bounded historical period originally established, several objects already do fall outside these often repeated parameters. For example, materials related to ocean liners are documented within the collection up to the 1970s, following the correct and overall chronological span of the historical cruise ship season. Several architectural or decorative arts archives also stray from these time limits to ensure integrity in the production of a manufacturer, artist, or architect. Moreover, it must also be highlighted that the increase in collections through Wolfson’s acquisitions goes hand in hand with the donations that the two institutions, Genoa and Miami, attract. Indeed, in recent times, the Genoa collection has been supplemented by important donations: one among them the acquisition, through a trust aimed at an upcoming donation, of the Tacchini Collection, comprising nearly four hundred works, including paintings and sculptures, by Italian and foreign artists active between 1850 and 1960 (Fochessati and Franzone 2022).

This openness to more recent eras, particularly in some areas of the collection, is also accompanied by a progressive Wolfsonian imprinting of all the activities promoted by the curators of the two museums. In 2007 at the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa, I personally curated an exhibition entitled In pubblico. Azioni e idee degli anni settanta in Italia (In Public. Actions and Ideas of the 1970s in Italy), which analyzed a complex and often dramatic decade in recent Italian history with an approach which connotes the spirit, aesthetic, and cultural directions of the Wolfson collection (Fochessati et al. 2007).

4. Wolfson’s Perspectives for the Propaganda Art Exhibitions of the New Millennium

The strength of this intuition has been confirmed much later by the most important exhibitions devoted in recent years to the arts of propaganda and, in particular, by the major exhibition Kunst und Propaganda im Streit der Nationen 1930–1945. Staged in 2007 at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin and preceded by an international conference devoted to the subject, the exhibition compared the different techniques of persuasion and consensus seeking of Fascist Italy, German National Socialism, the Stalinist Soviet Union, and Roosvelt’s United States (Tabor 1994; Ades et al. 1995).

The importance of these artifacts is determined by the fact that the extensive bibliography and the numerous exhibitions devoted in recent decades to Soviet art were usually focused on the high arts (painting, sculptures, architecture), whereas the arts of everyday life had been neglected. However, material culture much more directly and truthfully reflects the sociopolitical aspirations of a regime than traditional works of official art, such as portraits of dictators or figures idealized by the propaganda.

In this direction, from 28 November 2008 to 29 March 2009 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Wolfsoniana had organized the exhibition Party Dictatorship and Everyday Life in the GDR. The exhibition, staged in cooperation with the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM) in Berlin, reconstructed the history and culture of the German Democratic Republic, documenting the everyday reality of the GDR from the time of the political separation of the two Germanies until the fall of the wall, erected on 13 August 1961, with the approval of the Soviet bloc.

Wolfson’s extensive collecting interests, often well ahead of fashions and changes in taste, evidently had a strong impact on the art market, but, above all, helped to create new directions for research and offer new perspectives for interpreting propaganda art. In this sense, even the works he collected of Russian and Soviet art appear to be coherently contextualized in the dominant thought of his immense art collection, the musealization of which, planned from the outset, was intended to offer the broader public a direct—and democratic in its didactic intent—view of a specific historical period on an international level.

5. Conclusions

Above all, however, the Wolfson collection intends to emphasize the problems that accompany the reading of artistic artifacts produced in the context of the propaganda of dictatorial regimes, particularly everyday objects. Additionally, the collection offers a key to interpretation that, without obscuring their precipitous aesthetic character, can connect it to the mechanisms of persuasion underlying the political message of which these works are the bearers. And it is precisely in this respect that the Wolfson collection has succeeded, with a strong didactic intent, in breaking the traditional reading patterns applied to these works: condemned and rejected for their ideological content or, conversely, celebrated as precious relics of regimes inappropriately evoked with nostalgia. A secular approach, supported by solid scientific and cultural foundations, has made it possible to re-propose, without censure or apology, the historical value of art that turns out to be the most effective tool for understanding our recent history.