Arnold Mesches “Carnival” 1957 Lithograph - Framed With Booklet

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Signed, titled and dated lithograph featuring an abstract carnival scene. Framed, matted and ready to be hung. Includes booklet from … Read more Signed, titled and dated lithograph featuring an abstract carnival scene. Framed, matted and ready to be hung. Includes booklet from the Castellani Art Museum.

NYT article:

Arnold Mesches, a socially conscious painter whose political activities were recorded by the F.B.I. for more than 25 years in a thick dossier that he later used for his series “The F.B.I. Files,” died on Nov. 5 at his home in Gainesville, Fla. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by his wife, the novelist Jill Ciment.

Mr. Mesches (pronounced MESH-ees) was a scenic artist in Hollywood when his work for the Communist Party came to the attention of the F.B.I. in 1945. A file the bureau started began filling up quickly the next year, when he dropped his work as a storyboard artist on a Tarzan film and took part in a strike against the studios.

Over the years, agents and informers kept track of Mr. Mesches’s day-to-day activities, reporting to headquarters on matters large and small. If he signed a petition, it went into his file. When he turned in an illustration for Mad magazine, the fact was duly noted. One informant, noting his paint-spattered pants, wrote that Mr. Mesches “dressed like a Communist.”

In 1956 most of his artwork was stolen from his studio, including dozens of paintings and drawings inspired by the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. He strongly suspected that the F.B.I. was behind the break-in. See less