Ham and eggs art
Truman“Ham and eggs art” was Harry Truman’s phrase for modern painting that held no appeal or meaning for him. The expression captures his rejection of the new artistic styles represented at New York’s 1913 Armory Show and contrasts them with the older and regional art he preferred.
Context and Use
The Armory Show was the first major American exhibition of modern paintings. Its works included Marcel Duchamp’s sensational Nude Descending a Staircase. Truman had no interest in this kind of art; he called it “Ham and eggs art,” reducing a celebrated modern style to a dismissive, everyday phrase.
Truman’s Artistic Preferences
Truman preferred the old masters. In American art, he favored George Caleb Bingham’s paintings of Missouri riverboatmen and politics, as well as Frederic Remington’s western scenes. Remington had once owned a saloon in Kansas City. Set against these preferences, the expression marks not just a dislike of one exhibition but the gulf between the modern art Truman rejected and the historical and regional subjects he valued.
