The Greek Miracle: Who Paid for it?

The exhibition The Greek Miracle was announced at a live satellite press conference on 4 June 1992 from both the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Zappion exhibition centre in Athens. The exchange of antiquities from Greece, ‘many of which have never been allowed to leave Greece’, for paintings from the two American institutions involved was the main focus of The New York Times reporting of it the next day. An exhibition held at the National Gallery in Athens entitled From El Greco to Cezanne: Three Centuries of Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York was comprised of 35 Old Master paintings from the Met and about 35 French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from the National Gallery. The National Gallery in Athens had to improve its security and conservation conditions in order to secure the loan and advisers from America were sent to ensure improvements were made.

The corporate sponsor of the exhibition was announced as Philip Morris Companies Inc. Philip Morris Companies Inc are a tobacco company that also produce fast food products and beer. In their corporate report for 1992, Philip Morris list supporting The Greek Miracle exhibition in the ‘Supporting the Arts’ section of their Corporate Citizenship programme. Philip Morris was one of the biggest corporate sponsors of the arts in the early 1990s, particularly known for sponsoring blockbuster art exhibitions. Their sponsorship of The Greek Miracle raised questions about the ethics and politics of sponsorship, particularly within the climate of cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, which funds public arts bodies. Restrictions on advertising by tobacco companies in America, due to awareness about the health problems caused by smoking, meant that other forms of advertisement and promotion were used by such companies. Sponsoring a major exhibition is a shift of ‘direct advertising to indirect publicity’ for Philip Morris Companies Inc. In an advert (see above), ostensibly for The Greek Miracle, that was placed by Philip Morris Company Inc in The Washington Post on the day the exhibition opened on 22 November 1992, the bust of the Kritios Boy appeared above a long caption:

“We are all Greeks,” the poet Shelley said. Born of democracy. Invention. Philosophy. Theatre. History. Sciences. And art, born from that democracy makes us so. For out of the fifth-century Greece, modern man was given life. Now the art of the Golden Age of Greece is here, to explore, embrace and revel in. An historical event – of great importance to all of the western world – a study of man and democracy through art . . . Art as evolution. As mankind. As free. As all. For now, as in the age of Perikles, politics flower. History writes itself anew. Man challenges his world. Art tells the story. And we, in awe, muse over the miracle of democracy.

Underneath this text is a number for the National Gallery of Art and the dates of the exhibition and then a promotion for Philip Morris Companies ‘Sponsoring Innovation’. Annabel Wharton has observed that ‘with its affected syntax and rhetorical clichés, this text voices a popular understanding of the relationship that exists between modern western democracies and ancient Greek artefacts.’ The sponsorship of The Greek Miracle by a tobacco company offended many and was sometimes commented on in reviews. The misleading equation of ancient Athenian democracy with capitalist based ideas of freedom leads to interesting questions about the reception of ideas from the classical world in contemporary society. Questions such as how much is democracy in the modern world tied to a capitalist free market economy and how (or, indeed, does this) have any relevance for the reception of democracy and political practice in the classical world.