No-one disputes that peer pressure, successfully directed, ensures that perceptions follow quickly and comprehensively. Applied to the Cold War modernist policies we find that early on in the plan US corporations were heavy purchasers of big-ticket, approved modernism. Evidence indicates that there was a token bow to the UK alliance in the creation of Henry Moore as the leading British name in world perception - someone who figured in those making the top ten list of prices at auction or for commission... i.e. on a par with US star-system prices. It seems that led to a phenomenon which continues - giving to sculpture in UK export of modernists a decided edge over painting. The thinking seemed to be that with a reduced budget to compete with the Americans meant they would always be the second team in the art Olympics, so the shaping of one heavy-weight name was good policy - they had to let Barbara Hepworth go... until then quite a serious contender but not a woman of tile people. Class-wise, Henry Moore fitted that “regular Joe” genius the American teams epitomized. So all across America, in corporate foyers and on campuses, large Moore sculptures can be seen in bronze - imposing, expensive and low-maintenance - no small factor.

Francis Bacon, who emerged as the blue-chip painter in terms of auction prices, remained apart from both painters and sculptors - in that he was both a genuine bohemian and a gentleman in terms of education ; caustic and witty with erratic behaviour he could not be presented at functions as a solid representative and he spawned no following.

While via Moore a group of British sculptors were shaped with some cohesiveness over time and with an imprimata which remains to this day. The painters of parallel weight came from the Swinging London atmosphere - a taste of which can be got from the Russell Snowdon book “Private View”.

Hockney was Swinging London par excellence but was quickly side-lined into an hermetic position of sorts by leaving for LA, so is not much of a factor in this story until in recent times : he’s become part of the revival of ‘50s child-like innocence, an unsophisticated Northerner exposed to the LA sun. Like Bacon he has no following as such. So UK painters were less effective in the presentation of a national image although very active in moulding public opinion at home - where their peer pressure was more influential. Today’s Saatchi effort aspires to a kind of come-back of the US/UK rivalry in which its team is well-defined and promoted via a similar PR machine. But absurdism is the most difficult of all areas in the avant-garde : Continental speciality in fine art... no-one in the UK has really managed to get the hang of it ; although on the surface it looks like a direction with a lot of advantages and quite in line with the previous policies. The peer pressure to accept it “tel quel” is enormous but despite that the resistance seems quite lively... in the pioneer scenario the general public was kept at a distance but now invited to be affronted or endorse in rather an overtly bossy way.