Huysman Gallery

The gallery's most famous exhibition, War Babies, ran from May 29, 1961 to June 17, 1961.[2] It showed the work of Goode, Bell, Ed Bereal, and Ron Miyashiro, all of whom were born in the late 1930s and experienced World War II in their early childhood.[5] According to Hopkins, "the exhibition title was selected by Goode to establish a birth point in time and to indicate a sense of post-war internationalism."[8] War Babies was one of the earliest racially integrated exhibitions[8] and "was a daring challenge to the prevailing norms and mores of postwar America and its underlying racial stereotypes and identity politics."[5] The participating artists played off the work of the nearby Ferus artists.[9] Goode contributed thickly painted images of stars along with a cardboard box nailed to the gallery wall, Miyashiro contributed paintings suggestive of sinister eroticism, Bereal contributed leather pouches that stank of oil, and Bell contributed a "saddle painting".[9] The mix of styles present in the exhibition was indicative of the fluidity of the Los Angeles art scene in the early 1960s.[9]

The exhibition's poster, created by Jerry McMillan and Joe Goode, ultimately attracted more attention than the exhibition itself.[9] It depicted the four participating artists seated at a table covered with an American flag as a tablecloth.[5][8] Each of the artists was posed with a prop playing off an ethnic or religious stereotype: Bell (Jewish) held a bagel, Bereal (African American) held a watermelon, Miyashiro (Japanese American) held chopsticks, and Goode (Catholic) held a mackerel.[5][8] Liberals and conservatives alike criticized the poster; the John Birch Society denounced the gallery for flag desecration.[3][5][8] Following the controversy surrounding War Babies, the gallery's backers—a group of three lawyers—withdrew their support for the gallery.[4][9] The gallery closed in summer 1961, soon after the close of the War Babies exhibition.[2][3]