Presidential Papers, Doc#761 To Roland Livingston Redmond, 8 March 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Doc #762

Document #761; March 8, 1954
To Roland Livingston Redmond
Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series: United Nations
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part IV: "Pushing ahead along the broad center"; December 1953 to March 1954
Chapter 9: Fending off "the reactionary fringe"

 

Dear Mr. Redmond:1 Thank you for your letter concerning the placing of American paintings and sculpture in the United Nations Headquarters Building.2 As you can well imagine, it is a subject which interests me very much.

I am told that there is no space specifically allocated for American paintings in the United Nations but that the United States, together with other Member Nations, has been invited to contribute works of art. It is also my understanding that there is a Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Wallace Harrison which passes on the acceptability of contributions.3

It occurs to me, therefore, that your Council might do well to communicate with Mr. Harrison and his Committee in the selection of material to be shown at United Nations Headquarters.

The United States occasionally confronts the highly unjust accusation of being a materialistic Nation. Certainly, one way to give a dramatic refutation to this charge would be exhibition in the great world center which exists at the United Nations, of American works of art.4

My best wishes to you in the work you are doing towards this goal. Sincerely

1 Roland Livingston Redmond (LL.B. Columbia University 1917), New York lawyer and president of the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had been named president of the newly formed National Council for U.S. Art, Inc., an organization designed to place contemporary American art in the United Nations headquarters. Eisenhower had asked Ambassador Lodge for his advice concerning a reply to Redmond (Whitman to Lodge, Mar. 4, 1954, AWF/A: United Nations).

2 Redmond had asked the President to give his personal support to the project, "because of your interest in American art and your enthusiasm as an amateur painter" (Redmond to Eisenhower, Mar. 1, 1954, WHCF/OF 85). "Each member nation has been allocated a number of spaces in the UN Building," Redmond had written, "and while many have responded, the United States has not."

3 Wallace Kirkman Harrison, a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and a principal architect of Rockefeller Center, was senior partner in the architectural firm of Harrison and Abramovitz.

4 Eisenhower would grant his permission for the use of a Life magazine photograph titled, "The President at His Easel," for the cover of the National Council brochure and would review the text of the pamphlet (Whitman to Vanderplank, May 7, 1954, ibid.; Whitman to Dearing, June 21, 1954, AWF/A).

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Roland Livingston Redmond, 8 March 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 761. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/761.cfm

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