365 Days of Art: December 27 – NYC Mayor Doesn’t Understand Gorky’s Work

Arshile Gorky, Man’s Conquest of the Air, 1939 World’s Fair mural, now destroyed

December 27, 1935

At the opening for a group exhibition that features one of Gorky’s sketches, for his airport mural, New York City Mayor Fiorella La Guardia meets Gorky, views his work, and tells a reporter:

I am conservative in my art, as I am a progressive in my politics. That’s why I perhaps cannot understand it.”

Poor Gorky!