A representative collection of avant-garde American painting from the 1930s and 40s, owned by Auburn University. Conceived and funded by the State Department in 1946 as part of a new emphasis in international diplomacy, the exhibit of paintings called Advancing American Art was launched on what was enthusiastically projected as an extended goodwill tour of Europe and Latin America. But almost immediately the exhibit was attacked by conservative groups as un-American and subversive and its abstract paintings ridiculed in the national media, in Congress, and by no less a critic than President...