ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 presents the first detailed study of American abstract artist John Ferren, sent abroad to Lebanon in 1963 through a new artist-in-residence program under the auspices of the United States Information Agency. The chapter begins with an understanding of the aesthetic and discursive claims of American abstract expressionism as mobilized during the 1950s and 1960s. The chapter then considers the circumstances for Ferren as the choice for a residency in Lebanon, in particular his previous work in Algiers with the Office of War Information (1943–45) and his artistic and linguistic fluency in French, a paradoxical strategic American counter to Beirut’s strong francophone presence. Drawing on published interviews, press reports, Ferren’s private papers in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and works of art, this chapter argues for Lebanon’s strategic position within American plays for Cold War influence, the role of art and the artist within those plays, and the fraught nature of asserting a national identity when those boundaries are most porous.
