popularresistance.org
The ‘Red Scare’: Then And Now - PopularResistance.Org
On January 18, 1949, Edward Hopper delivered a painting to his gallerist depicting three people in a vast, bare space, a loft illuminated only by the light from outside. One of the figures is seated and speaking; the other two (a man and a woman) stand listening. Behind them hang swathes of fabric. Almost immediately, Conference at Night was purchased by Stephen Clark, one of Hopper’s foremost collectors. Just a month later, however, Clark returned the painting to the gallery because his wife was convinced the work too closely resembled “a communist cell meeting.”