Oral history interviews with Flavio Emanuel Cabral, 1965 April 3-May 3

Transcript

Preface

The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Flavio Emanuel Cabral on April 3 and May 3, 1965. The interview took place in Los Angeles, California, and was conducted by Betty Lochrie Hoag McGlynn for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.

Interview

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  This is Betty Lochrie Hoag on April 3, 1965, interviewing the artist Flavio Cabral, which is spelled F-L-A-V-I-O C-A-B-R-A-L. [Recorder stop, restarts.] Mr. Cabral is a painter in the medium of oils and also a teacher. And I believe has done a lot of commercial work, including for the studios, and work on murals. Mr. Cabral, first, I want to ask if you use a middle initial or name?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I never use it. My middle name is Emanuel, but not in use.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Thank you. Is that spelled with two ms, or one?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  One.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I'd like to ask you some about your life before we go into the paintings part. Will you tell us where you were born and when?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, in New York City in 1918.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And were you educated in New York?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Up to high school, through high school.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And then where did you go?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Then, I came to Los Angeles, and it is at that time that I worked on the Federal Art Project.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I guess you were very young, then, of course.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I was very young. I did not attend college until many years later. I've forgotten the exact date that I went, but at least 10 years after that. Since that time, I have received my bachelor's and master's degrees.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh, that's interesting. In the field of studio art?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  In the field of painting. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And where did you receive those?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  At the Los Angeles State College, which is now referred to as California State College at Los Angeles.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Now, is that the same school where you teach today?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, no. I teach at Los Angeles Valley College, and I teach on the subjects of art history and painting.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Hm. And the Project came along right at the beginning of your life. Why don't we go on with what happened afterwards to you and bring it up to date, and then go back to the Project?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  All right. After leaving the Project, I was steadily employed as an advertising artist at the National Screen Company, doing theatrical advertising. And subsequent to that, I went into my own business, doing the same kind of work, doing the posters for the Grauman's Chinese Theater, the Egyptian, and the Fox Wilshire Theater.

However, all along with this, I was continuing with my painting, and having one-man shows, and eventually taking on a small teaching assignment, and then deciding that perhaps teaching would be the preferred area for a steady income, and the decision to attend college, to acquire a degree, which I did, and I am now teaching, as I said, at Los Angeles Valley College.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And you exhibit at Horowitz's Heritage Gallery?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, no, my dealer is the Dalzell Hatfield Gallery.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh. Because Mr. Horowitz had told me about you—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, this is right. I know Mr. Horowitz, as a matter of fact, he lives in this neighborhood.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh, does he?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Before being taken on at the Hatfield Gallery, I had many shows at various galleries and museums. But I'm with the Hatfield Gallery now about seven years.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Thank you. And Olinka Hrdy told me about your commercial work, that it was so beautiful. Do you remember her on the Project at all?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, the name, I remember the name at the moment. The face doesn't come to my mind at the time.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  She's out here in Woodland Hills, and she's doing commercial work, children's games and books.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, yes, I recall her. She was probably aware of this phase, because I was active in the Project doing commercial work, not with the Art Project, but with the Music and Theater Project. As a matter of fact, I kind of trafficked back and forth between the Projects.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I see. You were expendable then, [laughs] on the Project.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  That must have been wonderful to have someone who could be in all of them. Let's go back to that, then. You had come out to Los Angeles. Was this with your family, or—

[00:04:58]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, I was a young man. I came out with my mother, and it was a rather pioneering move for us, because we really had no one out here, but it was my desire to come west, and my mother followed that decision. And I must say, the years I spent on the Project were extremely profitable. It was my introduction to many people in this area who were very active, and who were acquainted with modern art, which, at that time, was somewhat of an enigma to me. I think this contact was extremely profitable in every sense of the word. I look back upon those days with fond memories, in spite of the fact that the salary was inconsequential to our present standards, it served the needs, and I felt the spirit of communion with all of those on the Project. It was rewarding, and I'm sure that others would say the same thing.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I think everyone has told me that—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yeah, yeah.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:   —or in different words, the same thing. It must have been an exciting experience [inaudible].

FLAVIO CABRAL:  It is somewhat difficult for me to understand how so many people today still persist in the belief that federal sponsorship of art is undesirable on the grounds that art would be controlled. I can say from first-hand experience that the environment we functioned in was one of the utmost freedom. The federal government at this time was not controlling art, it was furthering art. And I'm sorry [laughs] to say in some way that a situation like this seems to be only a part of the past.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I personally hope it will happen again. And I don't know what's going to be done with that aspect of all the taping we're doing on this, but everyone has felt that there had been no interference or no—[Cross talk.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  The only problem that existed then was the climate. The Projects were originated for the purpose of helping those in need, and therefore, choice in determining who should be employed was limited to that. Consequently, quality perhaps sometimes had to suffer. As a matter of fact, in my own case, it may have been a good thing, because as a young man, I did not have as much to offer as those who had many, many years more experience. And I look back at this period as a real training ground for me, one that was better than any art school.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  What, exactly, did you do on the Project? Do you remember?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I did a series of things. I made some lithographs at that time.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Were you down at the center with the group and Dorothy Jeakins?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, I recall doing the lithographs at a studio on Seventh Street, near what is now MacArthur Park.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yes, that was the project center at that time.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Oh, I see. Then, I worked as an assistant mural painter on several projects. I did some easel paintings independently. And I recall towards the latter days of the Project that they gave me a rather specialized assignment. It was the painting of American Indians. I have no idea what it was for. It was to go—

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  You mean easel paintings?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Easel paintings, that's right. Now, I had to work from photographs and so on. But I had to represent the different types of Indians in portraiture style, and it was for a specific purpose. I don't recall what it was for. As a matter of fact, I don't even recall if I was told what it was for at that time.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I wonder if it could have been for the Art Index, the American Art Index.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Could be, that sounds familiar.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  They were doing artifacts. I hadn't heard of any portraits.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yeah, I have an idea this may have been the case.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Were they Californians?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I have not seen them since. [Laughs.]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Really? [Laughs.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  At that time, they took photographs of them, and I'm sure I have those photographs somewhere. If I had to hunt them up, I probably could find them, but I haven't seen them in years.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I hope sometime you do have time to look them up. I would like to borrow them to microfilm them.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I see.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And if I ever find out what happened to them, published or used, I'll let you know, too. Were they California Indians only, or do you remember?

[00:10:03]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, I do not remember whether they were just California Indians or not.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Which murals did you assist with?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, let's see. I remember one that went into a library in Gardena. I recall one that went into a school, the Virgil Junior High School, I think, on Fremont Avenue in Los Angeles, and I worked on one or two others, and I don't remember where they were going, actually.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Do you remember the artists who had designed them in the first place?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Boy, I—if I saw them, [they laugh] I would know them. Asking me their names now, I would not be able to come up with those names. In each case, somehow, they did not stay in the limelight here in the activity of California art. They might have even left the state. Now, I recall working on one mural that was designed by Dorr Bothwell, and I think she went to San Francisco and made some other reputation for herself there.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yes, I believe, well—that was Donal Hord's wife, wasn't she?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I don't know.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  The sculptor in San Diego, I think she was his first wife. And I believe that she's head of the school system in Mont—not Modesto, but one of the northern towns beginning with an M.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Some place up there. And of course, I haven't interviewed her, because the people in northern California—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yeah, take care of that.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And I can look that up and tell you where it was sometime, if you want to know, that mural, because I have it under her name.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I don't remember now. Were there a great many people working on these, when you assisted with them?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No. I recall assisting on one where I believe there was just myself and the designer. At no time do I recall a situation where there would be more than two or three assistants on the project. The one in Gardena was a fresco job, and I worked right there on scaffolding. All the others, I worked in the studio.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. [Inaudible.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  At the project. [Cross talk.] Yep.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  At the center, you mean?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  At the center, yes.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I see. I didn't—I haven't talked to the artist who did that particular mural in the Virgil High School, so I haven't heard about that. The other one's in rented space someplace. Usually, they were larger-sized murals, and they had to rent bigger space.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, these were large, or, rather, not so large that they could not be done right at the center.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  How did you happen to be used in the other departments of the Project? You said that—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, well, I had some experience in advertising art and lettering, and I had a disposition towards theatrical advertising, and if my memory is correct, I think the first experience on the project was in the Theater Project, where we were designing the displays for the plays that the Project was putting on.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  You mean the advertising for it? [Inaudible.] [Cross talk.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, the advertising. Well, I'm speaking of the lobby display posters, so the posters that went right out in front of the theater, and they often had a good deal of art along with them, as well as lettering. My first love was always painting, however, and just as soon as there was an opening on the Art Project and they accepted me, I moved over there. I shuffled back and forth a couple of times, because at certain times, the Art Project was maybe overly supplied with artists, and the Theater and Music Project would find it difficult to find someone to do an acceptable job in advertising, and then, they would call back for me, and I would go there.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Did that include any of the sets? Set design?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, nothing—no, only the poster advertising in the lobby.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Do you remember any other people who were doing the same thing, or were you the only one?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, no, the advertising department always had several people, because they were designing screen process posters to be—as a matter of fact, I designed many of those, also, to be posted around the city.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Were those silk screen, you mean?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Silk screen posters, yes. Oh, I must have designed 40, 50 of those things.

[00:15:08]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I've been wondering if June Wayne was in on the Project.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I don't know.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I don't know her age or anything about her, but I'm trying to kind of trace back the roots of implements of the Project, if I can, in this area.

[Cross talk.]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  —lithography, certainly, and silk screen, all of it must have had a great impetus, if not a regular beginning here—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I must say that the name of June Wayne did not become familiar to me until many years later.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I think I'll just call her up sometime and ask her about it. Because as far as I know, there hadn't been anything like that done in Los Angeles before that time in any of the things I read about the area.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, well, the printer area, of course, the Project afforded the use of presses, etcetera.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Excuse me.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yeah.

[END OF TRACK AAA_cabral65_8426_m.]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  This is Betty Lochrie Hoag on April [May –Ed.] 3, 1965, interviewing the artist Flavio Cabral, part two. [Recorder stops, restarts.] And Mr. Cabral, how in the world did you do things for the music section? Was this the same—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Same thing, yes. Both the Theater and Music Projects at that time were putting on very ambitious programs. Theater department, of course, putting on plays, music department putting on concerts, and both advertised quite heavily. And again, like the Art Project, I must say that I don't think I ever enjoyed some theatrical productions more than the things that they put on.

Again, contrary to popular opinion, these Projects were not boondoggling affairs. I would not say that nothing of that nature went on, but there were many serious people involved, and the quality of work they did, in my opinion, was just excellent. For one thing, rehearsal schedules would not have to be as tight as it would be in private enterprise. Their ambition was to do the very best job they could do, and in many instances, I think they fulfilled that ambition.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  That's interesting. I read someplace that there were 108 little theater groups in Los Angeles at that time. It doesn't seem possible.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Hm. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And it must have been a very thrilling place to live in, with all of that going on.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Do you remember anything about the exhibits that were held of the paintings? Any travelling shows or mobile exhibits, anything like that?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, I don't recall, as a matter of fact, did the Project have —oh, wait a while, I take it back, it's coming back to my mind now. There was a program of exhibitions at least on an annual basis. A little bit too far back for me to remember my opinion of the quality of these shows, and I was so young that I think anything in the arts excited me then. I'm afraid things are quite different, now. I don't attend exhibitions as often as [laughs] I did in those days, and I find the exhibitions much less rewarding now than they were then, or even as they were up to 10, 15 years ago.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  The Los Angeles County had quite a few shows at that time, the work that was being done on the Federal Project—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, yes, I'm quite sure.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Are there any other artists that you worked with at that time who influenced your own work that you remember?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No one—

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  —because you were so young.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No one in the Project. I tended at that time to have somewhat conservative views, which I changed later, and I remember that probably about this time in my own work, I was influenced, but not by those on the Project. I remember that Diego Rivera I admired, and Salvador Dalí I admired. There were many on the Project whose work I enjoyed. A name that comes to my mind now is Boris Deutsch.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh, yes. [Inaudible.] [Cross talk.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I thought he was a beautiful and sensitive artist. I admired the Baroque quality in Lorser Feitelson's work, and the sensitivity of Helen Lundeberg, and I thought that Denny Winters was an exciting young artist, and she seemed to have the approbation of many of those on the Project. These are the names that come to my mind.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  She was in the post-surrealism group with Helen Lundeberg—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg sponsored a post-surrealism group. As a matter of fact, now that you mention that group, I think I was influenced by that, because up to this very day, I have an inclination in that direction.

[00:05:07]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yeah.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Lorser Feitelson himself has moved away from that into many directions since that time.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Well, you apparently have been experimenting for some time, too. I noticed Jules Langsner in the Art News in December of 1951 reviewed a 10-year retrospective show that was given at the Chabot Gallery.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  That's right.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  It's no longer here, is it?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  They are in existence, but they don't give exhibitions. I think they just sell paintings.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I see. Sell privately. I was interested, and I think I'll just read this, because it gives a little description of your paining at that time, at least, 10 years ago as he gave it, "vacillates between academic painting, idyllic realism, and pure geometric abstraction."

FLAVIO CABRAL:  That's right.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And he was particularly impressed with one that you'd done in 1941 called Drifting Sorrow.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  He said it took its elegiac place in poetic realism of Hoppner [ph] and Wyeth [ph].

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And I thought that was—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I must say that that particular painting that he has chosen is the kind of thing that I have settled upon in a more abstract, designed manner, than the painting in record—what year was that?

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  The painting was done in 1941.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, but what year was the exhibition?

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh, '51.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, I thought it was more.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  10-year retrospective.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  It was a little exhibition that was a retrospective, but I thought it was more than 10 years ago.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh, I see.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Because I think it's over 10 years now that I've settled into an idiom that can be identified as Cabral, I hope.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Well, you certainly can never take the word of a magazine like Art News—I mean, they often, all the magazines get mixed up—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I think he was correct, as far as that show was concerned. It certainly showed me as an eclectic, as a man who was moving around in the period prior to that show.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Well, that lovely lyrical quality certainly comes—shows itself in this painting of your children, which is very beautiful.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I think it's more so in some of the other things that I've done, because I work in a very stylized manner, and I've created a kind of figure that is identifiable, but me—not the realism that you see here.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I see. Another artist, too, has done a lot, I think, that way, is Ed Biberman, and he was on the Project in New York, and he has a show opening—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  [Cross talk.]  At the gallery, yes.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I'm looking forward to seeing that. [Inaudible.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, there's an affinity [ph] in the work of Biberman and mine, especially in the street scene that he does, when I move away from the figure, and the figure is the theme I use most often, but when I do move away from that subject, I take the same hard-edged style and applying it to street scenes, it comes out looking somewhat like Biberman.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yeah, and still there—the image is always retained in his, and probably yours, isn't it?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Oh, yes.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Still, it's very romantic.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I have never gone through a sustained period where I lost the image. I feel that the identification with the image gives the work an association that enriches the pictorial expression.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I do too. And I think it gives the observer half a chance. [Laughs.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, this is what I mean.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Otherwise, it's rather cathartic, psychologically.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  The concrete world we live in is infinitely varied, and I think it would be impossible to exhaust it, and the many directions an artist can take just compounds the variation. And while one might think that in abstractionism, the possibilities are more limitless, I find quite the contrary. Because sometimes, a blue in one painting looks like a blue in another painting, [laughs] and I find it becomes repetitive.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yeah. I interviewed an artist who's doing delightful things in black and white prints, Edgar Taylor, do you happen to know him?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, I don't think so.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  He works almost completely with desert scenes, and again, like you, there's always realism there, but by the time he gets through with his prints, they're almost abstractions. It's always there, and it leaves a symbol—

[00:10:05]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, in the abstractions that I find the greatest satisfaction, I think it is always the ones where I can relate it to something, something experienced, something recognizable. And as a matter of fact, I think this principle had been held by Picasso, and it was his attitude that you begin with a concrete experience, and then abstract from there. But post-World War II, I think the direction has changed.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yeah.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  But again, I think changing from the post-World War II attitude back to something else again.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Mm-hmm [affirmative]. You think we're coming back to it?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, it certainly seems that way. Unfortunately, the coming back has taken extreme bizarre directions, and I reference to Pop art, where the image has come back [laughs] with—especially a thud [ph] that there's nothing left to the imagination. [They laugh.]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  We were at church yesterday, and they announced that there was an exhibit of "mom art," the women of the congregation had done, [laughs] it was really—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Oh, yeah?

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:   —clever thing, I hadn't heard that before.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  That's a play on a word, I'm sure.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Pop art. [Inaudible.][Recorder stops, restarts.] —already in several different ways about benefits you felt it had been to art history.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, I—there's no question in my mind that the benefit was there. There's also no question in my mind that it would be desirable for the government to get back into art. I firmly believe that the conditions in the arts today are almost deplorable, and I trace it to the fact that the artist is completely on his own resources. He has no social obligation. He works within the confines of his own studio. He consequently tends to become overly experimental, or overly introspective, and that if he was kept in the life stream by painting or sculpting or designing for public use, I think his works would be more communicable, would be healthier, and would add a great deal to the community.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Actually, the Project was the first time that ever happened in this country, I believe, because in Jeffersonian times, when artists were given work through the government, they were made to do allegorical classical things, which the public didn't care about. So, that's the only thing you can compare it to at all, isn't it?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, I think an antipathy has been built up, even on the part of the artist, to government-sponsored things, because it is true that the few government-sponsored things in this country, it may be true about other countries, too, have tended in the past to neglect the whole modern revolution. Consequently, the result has been somewhat hackneyed works. But this does not necessarily have to follow. It is very possible for enlightened men who are contemporary with their times to direct government-sponsored work so that it could reflect the times, as well as beautify the cities that these works are created for.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  My husband is an architect, so I am interested in that aspect of it, also. I think there's a definite trend in architecture for more—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:   —warm buildings, and I think that certainly is going to give us a place for more mural work in this country. [Cross talk.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, and there's really a great bit of precedent for this, because all the great works of the past were sponsored, if not by the government, by the church, or by the aristocracy, at no other time in history has the artist worked in his own privacy.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Yes, people will say that the Medici were private sponsors, but that actually wasn't true, because they were the state. [Laughs.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  This is right, the Medici family was Florence. They gave to the city. They were communal-minded people. I hope that this prejudice will eventually diminish. However, the forces aligned against government sponsorship in art seem to be quite powerful. Just recently, President Johnson signed a $10 million bill to support, to some degree, the arts. This is a small amount of money, and in spite of that, the Los Angeles Times ran an editorial on the old bugaboo of the federal government getting into the arts and controlling it.

[00:15:44]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  I didn't see that.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, I just do not go along with this point of view at all.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Well, Johnson himself has said that he plans to help the arts, and apparently he's attacking all these things one at a time [inaudible]. [Cross talk.]

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yes, and I've forgotten the name of the men, now, who were chosen to direct this, but I recall when I first heard it that there were men who were enlightened, and I'm quite sure the results will be very good, if there's not too much opposition to it.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Someone named Stevens [ph], I believe, had taken the place that Heckscher had under Kennedy. And the last I heard, Heckscher hadn't been consulted at all, which is criminal, nor had Mrs. Kennedy, who had both put so much work into this kind of thing and should be there at least in a consulting capacity. I don't understand.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Well, I, for one, hope that this project that you're on will bring to light the opinions of those on the Project, like myself, and I hope that those opinions correspond somewhat to my sentiments.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Oh, I hope they will, too, and I'm sure that—I'm sure they will. I learned just recently the Smithsonian is trying to collect all of the works that have been lost from the Federal Art Project. You know, many of them were stored away, for instance, Ejnar Hansen has done some fine work here, and I found one of his in an upstairs public building, just gathering dust, because the subject was peasant women potting in a field, potting plants, and at the time apparentlthis was considered possibly subversive, so it was just hidden away. Well, this happened all over the country. So, the Smithsonian is getting all of these out. Maybe you read about it, too.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, I didn't.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And many things, like Philip Guston who was then Phillip Goldstein, I don't know how he pronounced it here.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Yeah.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  And his works are coming out, and of course, the Jackson Pollocks, and, oh, Stuart Davis—

FLAVIO CABRAL:  Mm-hmm [affirmative].

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  —whose stamp came out, and Mr. Johnson's daughter chose that for her room, which is being redecorated. But that was one from the Project. And this is all kind of come to the head to me this week, because Mr. Wright called up in great agitation, and Santa Monica is moving their—[Recorder stops, restarts.] I broke that off in the middle of [laughs] Mr. Wright's murals, because it wasn't for the tape. I think we've pretty well covered the subject. Don't you?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  I imagine, I imagine.

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Unless you can think of any stories about it that you have?

FLAVIO CABRAL:  No, I say, I wish I had, a nice backlog of interesting stories, but unfortunately, you know, I was, you know, not that big. [Laughs.]

BETTY HOAG MCGLYNN:  Well, I certainly do appreciate what you've told us about it, and I thank you so much for the interview.

FLAVIO CABRAL:  You're very welcome.

[END OF TRACK AAA_cabral65_8427_m.]

[END OF INTERVIEW.]