eulogy at Annstrong’s funeral in 1971:nHe was truly the only one of his kind, antitanic figure of his and our time anPicasso, a Stravinsky, a Casals, a LouisnArmstrong.nYet, after the early 1930’s, this titanntook to showboating, highnoting, clowning,nand singing to please his widernaudience. There were moments ofnmusical brilliance in his final fourndecades, but his magical presencenlargely subjugated his protean im^ination,nhis inventiveness, his subtlety. Thenbeauty of Armstrong’s tone, whichnreflected his great soul, could not bendiminished, and it frequently carriednhim through substandard solos. Hisnsinging (he literally invented jazznsinging) was a part of the “individualnvoice” that made him a universally lovednfigure. But by 1934, his development asnan innovator was ended. Collier’s treat­nPublic, Political,n& PrivatenSerge Gvatbaut: How New York Stolenthe Idea of Modern Art: AbstractnExpressionism, Freedom, and thenCold War; University of ChicagonPress; Chicago.nDore Ashton: About Rolhko; OxfordnUniversity Press; New York.nLast January we noticed an advertisementnon a cable television channel fornAmerican Artist magazine. The announcernsaid, in a convincing MadisonnAvenue manner, that the magazine isn”committed to realist art.” Note that hensaid committed, not merely “devotednto” or “features.” Bolstering the nononsensenpitch is the premium: “a reallynuseful free gift … a sturdy canvas toten32iinChronicles of CulturenAK Inment of Armstrong’s decline has thenelements of a tragedy, in the classic sensenof a basic flaw leading to a character’sndownfall.nBased on his stringent assessment ofnArmstrong’s work in his final decades,nCollier may feel justified in givingnsummary treatment to the last 20 yearsnof the artist’s life. Regardless of the levelnof artistic achievement, however, it wasna period in which Armstrong was andominant and influential figure in Americannlife and around the world. Musicnaside, that phenomenon justifies extensivendocumentation and analysis. ButnCollier has written an invaluable accountnand evaluation of Armstrong’s lifenand output up to the 1950’s. It is admirablenfor its sympathetic weighing ofnArmstrong’s achievements and shortcomingsnagainst the pressures on anlower-class black man who came out ofnone of the sink holes of his society. Dnbag.” Useful, sturdy: this is the languagenof hammers, screwdrivers, and othernhand tools, the sort of thing that SocialistnRealist art speaks in posters showing thenhappy, strong workers busy at theirnbenches. The sponsors of the ad probablyndon’t have that mrmnd. Rather, they arenundoubtedly trying to appeal to peoplento turn back the clock to a time beforenwhat Serge Guilbaut calls “the avantgarde’sn1947-48 decision to abandonnrepresentative painting,” to a periodnwhen landscapes had trees and cows andnsuch, not blobs of pigment. The peoplenwho immediately leapt from their La-Z-nBoys to place their magazine ordersnmust think that the advent of abstractnexpressionism marked the descent of artnin America. But Guilbaut argues that thencreation of a “style that would avoid thentrap of illustration” in America during anperiod that extends afewyears on eithernside of the duration of World War II wasnnna coup, and that when Clement Greenbergnboldly announced in 1948 that thenCity of Light, once the center of Westernnculture, couldn’t hold a candle to NewnYork (thanks, in large part, to the “sincerity”nof New York’s Jackson Pollock), thenpoor, tired French had to accedenthrough default. It was, then, a triumphantnvictory, not a defeat.nThe pack of artists who moved fi-omnthe strictures of the Popular Frontnprogram to a new revolutionary order,nGuilbaut claims, put America on thencultural landscape: American artistsnwere derivative rubes no more. Unfortunately,nthis professor who is attemptingnto present a “materialist history of the artnof the New York school” maintainsnmany of the wonderfiil works of “alienation”nwere reintegrated into thensociopolitical fabric by bourgeoisndepartment store operators who offerednthe canvases, popular magazines thatnrecommended the purchase of same forninvestment purposes, and by, of course,nthe American government that had thengall to show the works on the internationalnscene as an expression of thenfi-eedom available to artists in this country.nPerhaps it’s because they feel that theynmust be at odds with the status quo, ornperhaps it’s because they have some sortnof tunnel vision when they leave thencotifines of their studios, but a considerablennumber of modem American artistsnhave been and are partisans of the left.nThe Spanish Civil War … the periodnprior to Hitier’s and Stalin’s getting intonbed… the McCarthy days… Vietnam:nall of these were stages during which thenartists could be opposed Some mark thendropping of the first atomic bomb as thenevent that somehow debilitated visualnartists, cast them into thoroughgoingndespair, darkened their vision, causedntheir role to be trivialized. Yet it’s hard tondiscern any slackening in their commitmentnto be against For example, thencover story of the January 1984 issue ofnArts Magazine—which isn’t a clarion forn”realist art”—concerns an organizationnndivacd Artists Call that, artist Jonn