It is difficult now to imagine the controversy that modern art generated in the first half of the twentieth century, but to many it was almost the end of the world, and it was creeping ever closer to them. An alarm was sounded by Rocky Mountain News columnist Lee Casey on 11 February 1948: “The influence of decadent Parisians…Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne…has even been felt in the West. Santa Fe has been damaged by it and Denver has not wholly escaped the blight….In Western art, Western literature and bourbon, I’ll take mine straight.” Denver newspaper articles trumpeted the conflict between “conservative” and “radical” artists. The debate climaxed in 1948 with the break from the 20-year-old Denver Artists Guild.