UC Irvine

World War II brought U.S. art museums and key branches of the federal government together to assess, redefine, and utilize the arts in America and deploy art exhibitions for national use. During wartime, art museums focused on building American unity and morale and creating new types of exhibitions to demonstrate political strength and enhance international diplomacy. In addition to producing exhibitions, U.S. art museums shared expertise and worked with army brigades in war zones to identify and protect key monuments of Western art and civilization. These efforts helped enhance the art status of the U.S. and gave American art museums new confidence and responsibilities in exhibition diplomacy. The roles art museums played during the war years laid the foundation for more active deployment of national diplomacy exhibitions after the war and greater participation in socio-political issues but the search for a unified national arts identity premised on exclusionary ideas could no longer continue unchallenged.