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Copyright by Michael Gordon Wellen 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Michael Gordon Wellen certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Pan-American Dreams: Art, Politics, and Museum-Making at the OAS, 1948-1976 Committee: Andrea Giunta, Supervisor Jacqueline Barnitz Frank Guridy Ann Reynolds Cherise Smith Pan-American Dreams: Art, Politics, and Museum-Making at the OAS, 1948-1976 by Michael Gordon Wellen, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2012 Dedication To LALW, PhD. You have my admiration and my heart. Acknowledgements In the course of researching and writing this dissertation I relied heavily on the hospitality, kindness, and good advice of many. My advisor Andrea Giunta was forever generous with her time and enthusiasm, guiding me through the most difficult aspects of writing and research. She helped me keep this project in perspective and showed me how to make productive, scholarly interventions into history writing. For that, she has my eternal gratitude. I am honored to call Jacqueline Barnitz a mentor as well as a cherished friend; she always believed in the importance of my chosen research topics and taught me how to navigate around potential pitfalls in the field. I found I could rely on Ann Reynolds to challenge me to think differently and better about the issues that interested me most in this dissertation. She and Cherise Smith also provided invaluable career advice in the last few years. I am grateful for the guidance provided by Frank Guridy, an outstanding teacher who gave this project his full support. For the past year, I have had the privilege of working with Mari Carmen Ramírez at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. I am immensely thankful for the care she has shown me and for the opportunity to learn from her wisdom and talent. A special thanks to Graduate Advisor Nassos Papalexandrou and Graduate Coordinator Maureen Howell, each of whom gave encouragement and helped resolve the administrative challenges that occasionally cropped up during my graduate education. This dissertation would not have been completed without the generous financial support of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, which covered my living and research expenses for four years. The fellowship allowed me to complete invaluable research trips in the United States and Latin America. But also, being selected for the fellowship gave v me confidence about the relevance of my dissertation and provided the impetus to see this project through during those inevitable moments of doubt and insecurity. I also received generous support from the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Fine Arts, the Art & Art History Department, and the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS), for which I am grateful. Quite a few colleagues, librarians, and archivists helped me in my investigations concerning the cultural operations of the OAS. My thanks go to Professor Alejandro Anreus for his scholarship and insights about José Gómez Sicre and for his comments on early versions of this dissertation. Professor Roberto Tejada also gave valuable feedback in the early stages of this project. I thank him for encouraging me to write with honesty and verve. I am thankful to Professor Claire F. Fox whose scholarship on the Visual Arts Department was another key point of reference for me; she kindly shared research materials that could not be found elsewhere. Professor Florencia Bazzano-Nelson led me to key documents in the José Gómez Sicre papers and historian Stuart Easterling brought my attention to materials on Rafael Squirru in the National Archives; my thanks to them both. The libraries at UT served as a second home to me these past few years. At the Benson Latin American Collection, Jorge Salinas, Christian Kelleher, and the staff at the Rare Book & Manuscript Collection aided me throughout my research. Laura Schwartz, Boris Brodsky, and Adam Hatley at the Fine Arts Library not only helped me locate books, they welcomed me warmly and kept my spirits high. I wish to express my thanks to my contacts at the OAS. I have great respect for Maria Leyva, Adriana Ospina, Greg Svitil, and Gabriel Gross at the Art Museum of the Americas. They guided me through the museum’s archives, shared their knowledge about the history of the Visual Arts Department, and connected me with various artists and experts. My thanks also go to Stella Villagran and Beverly Wharton-Lake at the OAS vi Columbus Memorial library, who showed me a forgotten mural by José Luis Cuevas deep in the library stacks. Christopher Shell, James Patrick Kiernan, Rebecca Read Medrano, and George Compton, all current or former staff at Américas magazine, provided me with a broader view of the OAS and its cultural programs. Mary Grothe, daughter of Scott Seegers (who co-founded and frequently contributed to Américas magazine), deserves special mention; she provided me with clippings and materials from her personal archive that gave me a better sense of the magazine’s origins. Ramon Osuna, Félix Ángel, and Horacio Sicre kindly and candidly shared their experiences working for José Gómez Sicre, giving me a better sense of the culture of the Visual Arts Division. Artists José Luis Cuevas, Carlos Poveda, Fernando de Szyzlo, David Manzur, and collectors Barbara Gordon, Diane Beruff, and José Martinez Cañas also provided insights into Gómez Sicre’s world. Artist Carlos Alberto Salatino helped me contextualize Rafael Squirru’s work within the cultural climate of Washington, D.C. in the 1960s. And, in 2010, Rafael Squirru himself granted me an interview, for which I am grateful. His daughters Maria and Eloisa Squirru were instrumental in making those arrangements and for providing further information about the critic’s life and work. I owe a great deal to my friends—many of whom I met through the UT Art History Department and through CLAVIS—for encouraging me and consistently giving me good advice. Thank you Erin Aldana, Amethyst Beaver, Doris Bravo, Kency Cornejo, Melissa Geppert, Patrick Hieger, Rachel Mohl, Tatiana Reinoza, Mari Rodriguez, Claire Ruud, Rose Salseda, Alexis Salas, Luis Vargas-Santiago, Gina Tarver, Sebastian Vidal, Abby Winograd, and Claudia Zapata. My work has benefited from the input of Doris Bravo, Melissa Geppert, Alexis Salas, and Abby Winograd, as well as from my participation in a writing group with Katie Geha and Caitlin Haskell; happily, the Rough Writers—including Andy Campbell, Tara Kohn, Laura Lindenberger Wellen, and vii Chelsea Weathers—let me drop in and out of their writing group. I have the utmost respect for their writing and style, and I consider myself lucky to share in their camaraderie. Special thanks also go to my good friends David Bernard and Roberto, Susanna and Hutch Hill and their daughter Beatrix, Margaret and Ricky Riccardi and their daughters Ella and Melody, for having patiently listened to me and for offering a great deal of laughter, sympathy, and relief. My most avid support came from my family, and I am forever grateful for the love, patience, and generosity they bestowed on me. No one worked harder to reach, understand, and sympathize with me than my parents Carole and Lester Wellen; I am thankful for their constant love, their receptiveness, their creativity, and their penchant for problem-solving. Together Kris and Alex Wellen, Nathaniel and Katherine, encouraged me at every turn and made my life richer. So too did Patrick Armstrong and Jessica Bertani, who put their faith in me. Jennifer Linden-Beck and Brandon Beck became my family while living in Texas. They shared their good humor as well as comforting food and drink, and I love them for it. A special thanks to Betty and Greg Pepetone, Carla and Greg Lindenberger, and their son Jacob, all of whom warmly embraced me with open arms. I love you all. Writing a dissertation means living—at least for a short period of time—on a special plane of human existence. But, to do it while being married to someone also pursuing her doctoral degree takes it to a whole new level of crazy. I am thankful to be a part of that very select category. In fact, I am sure I’d have abandoned my graduate studies long ago, if it were not for the constant motivation and the model of determination, intelligence, and passion set forth by fellow art historian Laura Augusta Lindenberger Wellen. Sometime ago, Laura and I began comparing our pursuit of doctoral degrees to that of two mountain climbers working in tandem. Truth told, I think I viii stole the metaphor from statements made by Georges Braque about his early explorations of Cubism with Picasso. In 1954, Braque recalled: “We saw each other every day and talked a lot…things were said between us that will never be repeated…things that would be incomprehensible today and that gave us much joy and that will die with us… it was like we were like two mountain climbers roped together.” From my view, our joint endeavors resonate with that certain specialness captured by Braque’s statements. My congratulations and love to you, Dr. Laura! Dora Vallier, “Braque: La Pienture et nous. Propos de l’artistic recueillis.” Cahiers d’art 34, no. 1 (October 1954), 14. ix Pan-American Dreams: Art, Politics, and Museum-Making at the OAS, 1948-1976 Publication no._____________ Michael Gordon Wellen, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Andrea Giunta In the 1950s and 1960s, the Organization of American States (OAS), a multinational political organization headquartered in Washington, DC, attempted to mediate U.S.-Latin American political and cultural relations.