Industry: art angel? Pepsi-Cola's "Portrait of America" art annual as an early instance of corporate art sponsorship

Robson, Deirdre ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6763-0352 (2015) Industry: art angel? Pepsi-Cola's "Portrait of America" art annual as an early instance of corporate art sponsorship. Journal Of American Culture, 38 (4). pp. 329-342. ISSN 1542-734X

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Abstract

The ideas of ‘corporate art’ or ‘corporate patronage’ became firmly embedded in the art world in the 1980s. However, this is not the only time that corporate sponsorship was suggested as having a role in the art world. In the 1940s, it was thought that big business could become the new “art angel” and assume the novel role of key patron of contemporary American artists. This article uses a case study—Pepsi Cola’s “Portrait of America”, an annual prize-bearing art competition with the twin aims of providing support for contemporary artists and acquiring materials for an advertising calendar—as a case study of why business patronage of art did not take root in the 1940s.

Item Type: Article
Identifier: 10.1111/jacc.12437
Additional Information: © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is the accepted version of the following article: Robson, A. D. (2015), Industry: Art Angel? Pepsi-Cola's “Portrait of America” Art Annual as an Early Instance of Corporate Art Sponsorship. J Am Cult, 38: 329–343, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.12437.
Subjects: Arts > Cultural history
Arts > Art and design history
Social sciences > Communication and culture
Depositing User: Deirdre Robson
Date Deposited: 30 Apr 2016 14:56
Last Modified: 06 Feb 2024 15:44
URI: https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1983

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