Forms of Persuasion

"Alex J. Taylor's excellent and richly revealing Forms of Persuasion returns to the topic of art's relationship to capitalism in the 1960s to uncover things most scholars have preferred to ignore--Warhol's quiet acceptance of commissions, Big Tobacco's willful organization of touring shows, and many corporations' canny acquisition of abstract art for branding purposes. Through a wealth of fascinating stories, Taylor shows all the moves in the delicate dance shared by artists and corporate chiefs in a period of dissent."--Joshua Shannon, author of The Recording Machine: Art and Fact during the Cold War "Challenging long-accepted verities about the nature of corporate sponsorship, Alex J. Taylor presents a series of shifting paradigms that reveal how the relationship between business and art was transformed by the end of the 1960s. This powerful book will reinvigorate the discussion of a phenomenon central to art culture until this day."--Nancy J. Troy, author of The Afterlife of Piet Mondrian