The FBI suspected that the Russian Jewish painter Marc Chagall was a spy for the Russians, according to an upcoming issue of the magazine ARTnews. A Yale University professor who discovered that the agency, which under long-time director J. Edgar Hoover kept files on many writers, artists and political activists, compiled 300 pages on the Russian-born painter, which concluded that Chagall was a “political crackpot” but not a spy.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.