Wearing the Masks
Wearing the Masks
This chapter focuses on Kuniyoshi's postwar work, which reflected overwhelming depression and pessimism that undercut and contradicted the critical success he enjoyed. Kuniyoshi's disillusionment was most underscored by the controversies he was unwittingly embroiled in that surrounded the State Department's Advancing American Art. The exhibition ignited one of the major partisan battles over what constituted American art and, more importantly, “Americanness” at the beginning of a decades-long Cold War. The fierce political battles that arose with the exhibition and the series of attacks targeting Kuniyoshi and his progressive compatriots created yet another identity crisis that challenged Kuniyoshi' definition and ideals of “Americanness” in the postwar years.
Keywords: Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Americanness, identity crisis, Cold War, American art
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