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Hans Hofmann
SPRING (1944-45)

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Alfonso Ossorio
DOUBLE PORTRAIT (1944)

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Characterizations of Existentialism

In a world, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself ...

Man cannot will unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth ...

With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.

Playing

Art Tatum Trio
FOOTNOTES TO JAZZ
VOL 2:  REHEARSAL

GEORGE ORWELL
Animal Farm

Years passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a number of the pigs.

Watching

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
Howard Hawks
USA, 1944

Daily Painting

William H. Johnson
THREE DANCERS (1944)

HENRY WALLACE
“The Danger of American Fascism” (1944)

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party ...

The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.

Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

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Henry Wallace was FDR’s vice president from 1941-1945

Daily Painting

Jean Dubuffet
ROAD WITH MEN (1944)

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John Wilson
INTERROGATION (WATERCOLOR STUDY FOR A LITHOGRAPH) (1944)

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Lizzy Ansingh
THE PERFORMANCE (1944)

Currently Watching

KISMET
William Dieterle
USA, 1944

Daily Painting

Milton Avery
HARPO MARX PLAYING THE HARP (1944)

Daily Painting

Paul Delvaux
SKELETONS IN AN OFFICE (1944)