When Harry Met Pablo: Truman, Picasso, and the Cold War Politics of Modern Art

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Truman and Picasso were contemporaries and were both shaped by and shapers of the great events of the twentieth centurythe man who painted Guernica and the man who authorized the use of atomic bombs against civilians.
But in most ways, they couldnt have been more different. Picasso was a communist, and probably the only thing Harry Truman hated more than communists was modern art. Picasso was an indifferent father, a womanizer, and a millionaire. Truman was utterly devoted to his family and, despite his fame, far from a rich man. How did they come to be shaking hands in front of Picassos studio in the South of France
Trumans meeting with Picasso was quietly arranged by Alfred H. Barr Jr., the founding director of New Yorks Museum of Modern Art and an early champion of Picasso. Barr knew that if he could convince these two ideological antipodes, the straight-talking politician from Missouri and the Cubist painter from Mlaga, to simply shake hands, it would send a powerful message, not just to reactionary Republicans pushing McCarthyism at home, but to the whole world: modern art was not evil.
Truman author Matthew Algeo retraced the Trumans Mediterranean vacation and visited the places they went with Picasso, including Picassos villa, Picassos ceramics studio in Vallauris, and Chteau Grimaldi, a museum in Antibes.
A rigorous history with a heartwarming center, When Harry Met Pablo intertwines the biographies of Truman and Picasso, the history of modern art, and twentieth century American politicsbut at its core it is the touching story of two old men who meet for the first time and realize they have more in commonand are more alikethan they ever imagined.

Author Bio

Matthew Algeo is the author of Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure, The President Is a Sick Man, and All This Marvelous Potential. An award-winning journalist, Algeo has reported from four continents for NPR News.