ABSTRACT
The reception of US art in Greece during the period of the Cold War was informed by ideologically charged debates on art and culture that lasted well into the 1980s. The outcome of the war was to a significant extent decided by technical, financial, and military aid from the USA to the so-called Greek National Government, as well as by the fact that the Soviet Union and neighboring socialist states modified their stance and did not support the “Democratic Army.” Throughout the 1950s, Greece’s economic and political dependency was prolonged because of the extent of the country’s devastation; US aid was instrumental for Greece’s modernization (tantamount to economic growth, urbanization, the development of tourism, and an incipient consumer culture). At the same time, the 1950s and the 1960s were dark period for the arts, as number of modernists whose subject-matter was seen as offending established morality and public institutions, together with artists with Socialist Realist tendencies, were prosecuted or censored.
