John Frohnmayer, Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow Lecture 1992

Addressing an audience of artists at Skowhegan several months after he was fired from his chairmanship at the National Endowment for the Arts amidst controversies surrounding NEA grants, John Frohnmayer speaks about the history of law and the history of censorship, the First Amendment, the value and perils of publicly funded art, the status of art within American society at the time of the lecture, and the gifts of inquiry and advocacy which artists give to society in their search for truth and meaning.