In the trenches! Art, therapy and MoMA at war

Abstract

This research departs from the question: why is art therapy present in such a small number of art museums in the US? The answer to this question is rooted in the history of art education and art therapy. It is for that reason that a historic case study can provide initial musings around which to scaffold a larger dialogue in the present context. The case I have chosen took place in the early years of art therapy in the US (1940s) at an art museum that initially embraced the practice of art therapy to later completely dismiss it as inadequate: The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).

In the 1940s, when art therapy was relatively new for the fields of psychology and art, MoMA saw in its use a way to respond to their historic responsibility: the reinsertion of veterans returning from World War II to civilian life.

Once the war was over, there was a breach between the supporters of art therapy and the Museum of Modern Art. In this essay I explore the reasons behind the discontinuation of the museum’s interest in art as therapy. I do so while studying the documentation produced by MoMA during the war years (1939-45), the Veterans Art Center (1944-48) and the museum’s latter campaign to discredit art therapy. In rooting the flourishing of art therapy at MoMA in the context of World War II and its subsequent fall out of grace I aim at identifying threads that might lead future conversations that might answer why art therapy has not yet achieved wide acceptance in the art museum field.