The introduction to the catalogue lent credibility to some of the stereotypical views of American art which had been circulating since the end of the war. It constructed an image of Pollock as a cowboy, a Wild West savage and thus a cultural barbarian and this was willingly adopted by a number of critics.Themes of bestiality, violence and barbarism were never far from the critics’ minds. While primitivism denoted lack of culture, barbarism had not that long ago been associated with fascism. Thus Pollock symbolised the uncivilised enemy of European culture.

The image that America had exported through literature, films, art and art writing had thoroughly permeated English minds.The mixed critical reception of “Modern Art in the United States” was understandable in the context of general attitudes towards America, but by the time that the Pollock retrospective arrived at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in November 1958 the response had significantly changed. Whereas in 1956, having seen only a handful of paintings, many critics had regarded them as chaotic, they now perceived a logical development and an underlying order.The fact that a clear chronological development and a substantial range of Pollock’s work was visible had helped to convert the critics to his cause. It was greeted with amusement and Pollock was ridiculed in advance of the late arrival of his works. Those critics who actually did see his work judged it to be decorative.”Modern Art in the United States”, shown at the Tate Gallery in 1956, was more widely reviewed. American art was promoted in Europe within the context of a general infiltration of American products, financial aid and lifestyle. That context conditioned the reception of Abstract Expressionism and, in particular, of Jackson Pollock.The first sight of Pollock’s painting in England occurred in 1953 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Dover Street in an exhibition called “Opposing Forces”. Without (it), wealth and might lead only to hatred, conspiracy and revolt against the physically dominant power.”
Respect for that culture did not simply come through the appreciation of high art however.

IT HAS long been recognised that the exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism circulating in Europe in the 1950s were part of a cultural offensive during the Cold War to establish the United States of America as a benign superpower and a model of democratic freedom. As early as 1950 Lewis Galantiere indicated the necessity for such a strategy: “When a nation attains to world leadership, it preserves that rank only as long as its culture.. commands respect… Which homeless drug addict, which child of incapable, cruel or absent parents would we choose to include when there are so many of equal misery to qualify?Unlike the very rich, who have names and addresses, the very poor are anonymous, which is all the more reason to remember them.. But his instinct that money is not the alpha and omega of a man or his society was quite correct. If we tried to compile a list of the poorest hundred people in Britain, the obvious contrast with the rich list would be the lack of variety of circumstances and backgrounds among the destitute.While the rich are drawn from an ever wider social sphere, the very poor stay very poor for a depressingly similar cast of reasons – poor parents, poor housing, poor schools, poor diets, poor expectations.