Available via license: CC BY-NC 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
© , |:./-
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the - 4.0 license.
() -
brill.com/hjd
Purposes, Politicisation and Pitfalls of Diplomatic
Gift-giving to the United Nations
Loraine Sievers|: ---
SCProcedure, Weston, CT, United States
lcsievers@earthlink.net
Received: 10 October 2020; revised: 25 November 2020; accepted: 17 January 2021
Summary
Politicisation has characterised diplomatic gift-giving to the United Nations since its
early years. Donations of decor and furnishings in some instances can be an equaliser,
and in others can accentuate inequalities. Member States’ motives range from altru-
istic to self-seeking, but larger purposes are served, including increased cross-cultural
understanding and community building.
Keywords
United Nations art collection – diplomatic gift-giving – cultural diplomacy
1 Introduction
On 7 October 1974, the Deputy Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of
China stood beside Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim in the UN Delegates
Lounge. Chiao Kuan-hua was there to present what the New York Times called
‘a spectacular tapestry’ of the Great Wall. Ten meters long and weighing
280 kilograms, its sheer size and vibrant colours awed the assembled diplo-
mats, UN ocials and reporters.
However, at the United Nations, rarely is a diplomatic gift merely a gift.
Chiao armed that this donation from his country, which three years before
had assumed China’s seat at the UN, reected ‘the new outlook and new style
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
-
() -
of the new China’. It was seen in a similar light by a European diplomat, who
remarked: ‘To me its message is simple. It says China has arrived here and
means to stay here. And it means China will have a prominent position in
everything happening here from now on’.
The rising political prole of the People’s Republic of China was symbol-
ised not only by its presentation of such a dramatic gift but also by the con-
current fate of another gift. Just prior to the arrival of the tapestry, a green
marble plaque bearing a quotation by Confucius quietly disappeared from
the entrance to that same lounge. The plaque, donated by the now ejected
Republic of China, had been removed at the insistence of Beijing.
The intertwined stories of these two art objects exemplify the politicisation
which characterises diplomatic gift-giving to the United Nations, and which
dates back to before completion of the UN building in 1952.
2 Furnishing the New UN Headquarters
In 1946, the General Assembly accepted a US invitation to locate the organisa-
tion’s Headquarters in the United States. Immediately, the UN was inundated
with unsolicited ofers of decor and furnishings from governments, artists
and philanthropists. The UN’s team of architects initially held these ofers in
abeyance, for fear the building would become cluttered with works of dubi-
ous quality. However, their hand was eventually forced by a budget shortfall so
severe that for the building plan to be approved, ve oors had to be lopped of
the tall Secretariat building.
Thus unable to commission the necessary decor and furnishings, the UN
had no choice but to proceed via donations. This placed the organisation’s
Secretary-General, Trygve Lie of Norway, and the architectural team in the
In 1971, the General Assembly, by Resolution 2758 (), recognized the representatives of
the People’s Republic of China as ‘the only legitimate representatives of China to the United
Nations’ and simultaneously expelled the representatives of the Republic of China.
Teltsch 1974.
Although the many international organisations belonging to the UN system have also
received signicant art donations, this article focusses on UN Headquarters. It also focusses
on Member States as donors, although there have been important gifts from civil society.
This was especially noteworthy because many of these ofers came from countries which
were still struggling with war-damaged economies.
UN Press Feature No. 213/Rev. 8 1974, 3.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
() -
sensitive position of discouraging some ofers, while trying to elicit others. It
also gave additional weight to the wishes and tastes of prospective donors.
Politics quickly intruded. An initial priority was to furnish the principal
meeting rooms. Without consulting the lead architect, Wallace K. Harrison,
Lie unilaterally accepted ofers from Denmark, Norway and Sweden to donate,
respectively, the chambers of the Trusteeship, Security and Economic and Social
Councils. Although the architectural and decorative styles of the Scandinavian
countries were widely respected, the lack of consultation spurred the hasty
creation of a Board of Art Advisers from France, Mexico, the United Kingdom
and the United States.
Jostling for control arose with respect to the Security Council Chamber
in particular. Lie felt strongly that the chamber should correspond to the
Council’s sober mandate. It is widely believed that for that reason, he steered
its design towards his own country, with which he would have greatest
inuence. The new Board, however, tried to exercise a modicum of decision-
making power. Six months after Per Krohg, the artist designated by Norway,
had begun a large painting for the chamber, the Board decided there should
be no murals in the three chambers. In response, the Norwegian architect
Anstein Arneberg declared that without Krohg’s painting, he would walk of
the job. This brinkmanship was followed by a royal decree from Norway,
making its funding of the chamber conditional on the painting. Ultimately,
Lie intervened to organise a visit to Krohg’s studio in Oslo, after which the
Board backed down.
The other structural donations to the UN building proceeded largely with-
out controversy. In addition to the other two council chambers, these included
Canada’s decorative bronze doors leading into the building from the Visitors
Plaza and the carved wood panels of Conference Room 8, gifted by the United
Kingdom. Early donations to the interior decor were the Belgian tapestry over-
hanging the Delegates Lobby, the Léger-designed murals on either side of the
General Assembly Hall and the Netherlands’ Foucault pendulum.
The fact, however, that so many of the signicant initial gifts were from
Western countries created a problem of a diferent order. In conjunction with
the design of Headquarters as a skyscraper — an architectural form then
Louchheim 1951a.
Holme 2018, 86, 188.
Holme 2018, 115.
Sandvik 2014, 158.
Holme 2018, 120-121.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
-
() -
quintessential to the United States — this risked sending out an unintended
signal that the principal design elements of the home of the new ‘world’ organ-
isation were in fact being largely dened by Western culture.
Fortunately, initial donors from other regions were not entirely absent.
Countries of Latin America — a region accounting for 20 of the original 50
Charter signatories — provided two major gifts: a striking pair of oor-to-
ceiling murals entitled War and Peace by Brazil’s Candido Portinari, and a
priceless 3,000-year-old Peruvian burial mantle. Donations from Eastern
Europe included large sculptures displayed in the UN Garden from the Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia. In addition, a model of the rst Soviet Sputnik satellite
was suspended in the Public Lobby.
Initially, there were relatively few gifts from Africa and Asia-Pacic. This
reected the fact that the Headquarters was being established prior to the rst
great wave of decolonisation, at a time when the UN had only four African
and fourteen Asia-Pacic Member States. However, despite their donations
originally being few in number, countries of the two regions presented some of
the nest pieces in the UN art collection, among them a 700 statue of Osiris
from Egypt, a 3rd-century mosaic from Tunisia, a Kente cloth from Ghana and
the Indonesian Lounge with its Balinese statues of Peace and Prosperity.
Gifts to the United Nations continue to this day. A number of later donations
have been of smaller size, which is advantageous since the obvious locations
for large-scale objects have mostly been lled. Nonetheless, place is still occa-
sionally found — both in outdoor spaces and along interior corridors — for
bigger pieces. Among these are Finland’s four-and-a-half-meter-tall stainless
steel sculpture celebrating its composer Jean Sibelius, mounted on the Visitors
Plaza, and Oman’s massive, carved wood case containing ornate handicrafts,
installed outside the Economic and Social Council Chamber.
This gift might have been provocative had it occurred in 1957, the year Sputnik 1 was
launched, an event which appeared to give the Soviet Union a considerable edge over the
United States in space technology. However, the year 1959, when the model was donated
to the UN, marked a thaw, albeit brief, in superpower tensions. By then, the US govern-
ment had sucient condence in its own space prowess such that when each country
exchanged goodwill exhibits, the Soviet exhibit which travelled to several US cities was
permitted to display models of all three of the rst Sputniks. USSR Exhibition: New York
1959, 3. In 1970, ‘outer space parity’ in UN gift-giving by the two superpowers was achieved
when the United States donated a moon rock, brought back by the Apollo 11 astronauts,
which was also displayed in the Public Lobby.
In contrast, today the two regional groups comprise 54 and 55 states, respectively.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
() -
3 UN Requirements and Donor Goals
The UN art collection is so eclectic that it is sometimes wondered whether
there are any standards at all. There are. But in their successive versions, the
UN guidelines have been so broad, and so exibly applied, that rarely has a
proposed donation been rejected.
Initially, the UN Board of Art Advisers set out as core principles that
Headquarters should not become a museum or exhibit hall, but that the art
displayed there ‘should be an accompaniment rather than a distraction, a
background, not the center of interest’. It also armed that choices need not
‘be limited to professional and deliberate painting; folk arts will be welcomed
and the arts of the past, too’. It was understood that art for the ‘great building
on which the eyes of the world are xed’ should have aesthetic worth and be
consonant with the UN’s principles and purposes.
Similar principles have been followed by later art advisers, including the high
UN ocials Brian Urquhart and Alvaro de Soto. In Urquhart’s view, the art at
the UN has become ‘a surprisingly interesting and distinguished collection’.
At the same time, he has stated that would-be donations were ‘sometimes
entirely unsuitable’ and were declined, although the UN tried ‘not to insult
governments’. Rejection, however, is an extreme step. More often, question-
able works of art have been accepted and then placed in obscure locations or
in storage.
Politically, it can be dicult for the organisation to turn away gifts ofered by
states which play larger roles at the UN, including as major nancial contribu-
tors. This mirrors a dilemma which can confront the UN when, for example,
pressure is brought to bear on it to appoint specic nationals to high-level posi-
tions. Preferential treatment was given in one instance to the Soviet Union
but for good cause. For some years the UN had declared a moratorium on
accepting new gifts. Then, in 1990, a Soviet sculptor won the support of both
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US Secretary of State James Baker for
a statue of Saint George slaying a dragon sculpted from sections of genuine
missiles from both countries. Given the importance to the UN of greater co-
operation between these two countries, the sculpture was accepted, with de
Soto hedging on the ban by saying, it ‘is being relaxed very slowly’.
Louchheim 1951a.
Marks 1999, 10.
Urquhart 1987, 112.
Blair 1983.
Lewis 1990.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
-
() -
The goals of donor states can be considered as fourfold: 1) to add to their
stature at the UN; 2) to have on display visible representation of their national
culture; 3) to symbolise their investment in the organisation’s mission and
4) to contribute to enhancing the aesthetics of the UN premises. Former
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali commented that ‘each gift repre-
sents the desire of a Member State to ofer a part of itself, and of its aspirations
for the future’. A fth goal, posited by one commentator, is that governments
‘try to score subtle political points through their gifts’. This can be through the
donation itself but also through what is said at its dedication.
While donors’ motives may range from altruistic to self-seeking, no govern-
ment is likely to think that a single gift will enhance the way that its delega-
tion is regarded at the UN. Rather, a well-chosen gift is more apt to be part
of an overall strategy of using ‘soft power’ across a range of cultural activi-
ties for raising a state’s prole — activities which can include hosting recep-
tions, musical or theatrical events, tastings of national cuisine and exhibits on
themes of national signicance.
4 Diferences in Cultural Outlooks
Member States’ gifts sometimes reveal cultural and political proles which
may not otherwise be apparent in the day-to-day work of the organisation,
where homogenisation is increasing as mother tongues cede place to English,
and national dress to Western clothing. For diplomats not familiar with
each other’s cultures, donated works of art can stimulate interest and cre-
ate greater cultural understanding. Many diplomats in New York are quick to
volunteer that they have a favourite art piece, and often this appreciation is
cross-cultural. For example, a Bulgarian diplomat has mentioned fondness for
Nigeria’s Anyanwu statue, while a British diplomat has praised the Portinari
murals given by Brazil.
Nonetheless, there is also the risk of creating ofense cross-culturally through
art. In their 2017 study of cultural diplomacy at the UN Oce in Geneva,
Melissa Nisbett and James Doeser arm that ‘one person’s masterpiece can
Marks 1999, 9.
Wineld 2000.
Nisbett and Doeser 2017, 16, note that whereas academics commonly make a distinction
between ‘soft power’ and ‘cultural diplomacy’, diplomats tend to use these terms inter-
changeably ‘without precision and in a very uid manner’.
Bulgarian diplomat and British diplomat, conversations with the author, 2020. Empirically,
it would appear that at the UN, appreciation of a particular art object is rarely dependent
on the identity of the donor country.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
() -
be another’s blasphemy’. The nude statue of Zeus in the Public Lobby from
Greece and the nearly nude gure of the ‘Swords into Ploughshares’ sculpture
in the Garden from the Soviet Union, as well as the partially clothed women
and men in the Belgian tapestry, would, for example, be shunned as subjects
for public art in a number of countries.
Yet tolerance has generally been shown for a wide range of art subjects at
the UN. Even art of a particular religion has not been deemed inappropriate.
The Christian Khatchkar cross-stone monument from Armenia, an embroi-
dered black silk curtain from Mecca and a carved stone excavated from a 4th-
century synagogue in Israel have all taken their places in the UN collection
without objection.
As for the aesthetic dimension, varying degrees of quality and taste have
generally been accepted within the UN community. It is understood that in
contrast to bilateral gift-giving, where there is only one recipient in mind, gift-
giving to today’s UN involves the art orientations of 193 states, not all of which
can possibly be pleased to the same degree.
However, more formal or sophisticated style preferences can sometimes
clash with modernistic or casual tastes. As part of the Capital Master Plan ren-
ovations completed in 2014, the Netherlands undertook to re-envisage the fur-
nishings of the Delegates Lounge. While praise for the introduction of ‘Dutch
Design’ elements was widespread among outside design specialists, within the
UN it was considered an ‘epic fail’. Habitués wistfully contrasted the former
leather, steel and glass furniture with the new tables and chairs of moulded
plastic in white and bright green, which some likened to ‘Ikea’, or ‘a terrible
airport lounge’. Fortunately, the Dutch delegation was suciently well liked
to weather the storm.
The wish of donors to present to the UN art which promotes higher per-
spectives and values has sometimes put the organisation’s collection ahead of
national attitudes. Krohg depicted ‘black and white prisoners of war, who are
brothers in both degradation and liberation’ at a time when racial inequality
was deeply institutionalised in a number of Member States. And the portray-
als of the horrors and destruction of war in UN art have been in advance of
national statuary and paintings which depict the glory of military victories.
A side benet to gifts given to the organisation is that shared ‘UN folklore’
about them contributes to bonding. For example, Yugoslavia’s statue of Peace,
Nisbett and Doeser 2017, 20.
These included Knoll club chairs and copies of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair.
Betsky 2005, 71.
See, for example, Malone 2014.
Louchheim 1951b.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
-
() -
depicted as a woman on horseback, dominates the view over the UN Garden
from the Visitors Plaza. For decades, the UN community has smiled at the idea
that Peace is riding not towards the UN but away from it. Such stories involving
the UN collection (of which there are many), when recounted to new arrivals,
can create a sense of belonging and of becoming an insider.
5 Conclusions
In addition to rst-time donors, some states which, in earlier decades, gave
gifts to the organisation have made further donations in later years, indicat-
ing the ongoing relevance to UN members of this form of visual diplomacy.
As pointed out by Costas M. Constantinou: ‘The visual plays a crucial role in
diplomacy’ and has traditionally ‘gured as part of the dignied milieu or the
ceremonial trappings of power that support the linguistic environment of
diplomacy’. Specic to the UN context, Constantinou has written that ocial
diplomatic gifts ‘supposedly reect on the brand image of both the organisa-
tion and the member state, amplifying the principles that guide their action’.
Nonetheless, Iver B. Neumann cautions that there is ‘no guarantee that
elding something that is expected to be visually efective will actually prove
efective, for the simple reason that exactly what is visually pleasing varies so
widely from polity to polity’. He adds that the visual is therefore ‘a precarious
modality in diplomacy’.
Viewed objectively, diplomatic gift-giving to the UN may appear to be
non-reciprocal, in that the donor does not receive a tangible gift of equiva-
lent value from the organisation. Yet it is clear that a signicant majority of
states have concluded that worthwhile benets nonetheless accrue from this
practice. Evidence of this is found in the statistic that more than 140 of the
UN’s 193 Member States have given at least one gift. However, the fact that
approximately 50 countries have not done so suggests that gift-giving to the
UN is regarded by the diplomatic community as optional, and not essential to
developing a respected prole at the organisation.
Within the broad range of cultural activities carried out by Member States,
it is virtually impossible to isolate the impact of a particular gift. Nonetheless,
decor and furnishings given to the UN may have a longer-lasting efect than
For example, in 1995, two decades after donating the Great Wall tapestry, China gave
the UN the large bronze Centenary Tripod, another object having important national
signicance.
Constantinou 2018, 104.
Constantinou 2021.
Neumann 2020, 56-57.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
() -
an expensive reception or concert which, once over, may soon be forgotten.
Norway’s donation of the Security Council Chamber, and its later renovation,
have been sources of enduring prestige. These were highlighted as part of
Norway’s campaign for a 2021-2022 seat on the Council, and in fact Norway’s
campaign logo was the stylised heart of the chamber’s decorative fabric.
In some instances, gift-giving to the UN can be an equaliser. A small state
may donate a relatively inexpensive handicraft which, because of its unique-
ness and workmanship, may gain more positive attention than another state’s
costlier gift. One fairly modest donation which is widely appreciated comes
from the island of Palau (population 17,900). It is a 1.5-meter wooden eel which
narrates a story through intricate carvings on both sides and has been deemed
worthy of display in the high-trac area outside the Trusteeship Council.
In other instances, gift-giving can accentuate inequalities. The Capital
Master Plan renovations created opportunities for redecorating the Delegates
Lounge, the Security Council Consultations Room and an adjacent area, but
these projects fell well outside the reach of smaller states and rather were
nanced, respectively, by the Netherlands, the Russian Federation and Turkey.
Overall, it would be too narrow to conclude that states evaluate their own,
and others’, gifts to the UN solely on the basis of direct national gain. Each
gift to the organisation adds to the collective backdrop of the daily formal and
informal conversations which take place there. As Michael Adlerstein, chief
architect of the Capital Master Plan, has observed: ‘The delegates enjoy the
collection. It is their art, and it is their house’.
Bibliography
Adlerstein, Michael. ‘We Are Not a Museum’. Vereinte Nationen: German Review of the
United Nations 62 (4) (2014), 152-155.
Betsky, Aaron. The U.N. Building (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005).
Blair, William G. ‘U.N. Art Collection, like the U.N., Keeps Growing’. The New York Times,
13 March 1983, sec. 1, 52.
Constantinou, Costas M. ‘Diplomacy’. In Visual Global Politics, ed. Roland Bleiker
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 104-110.
Constantinou, Costas M. ‘Around the Broken Chair: Locationality, Visuality and the
Vibrancy of Diplomatic Objects’. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 16 (1) (2021), this
issue.
Holme, Jørn, ed. The Security Council Chamber (Oslo: Forlaget Press, 2018).
Adlerstein 2014, 152.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
-
() -
Lewis, Paul. ‘How St. George Ended up at the U.N’. The New York Times, 30 September
1990, sec. 1, 17.
Louchheim, Aline B. ‘Art for United Nations’. The New York Times, 17 June 1951a, sec. , 6.
Louchheim, Aline B. ‘A UN Art Problem’. The New York Times, 28 December 1951b,
sec. , 12.
Malone, Noreen. ‘Undercover at the U.N. Lounge, Where Diplomats Get Drunk and
Handsy’. The New Republic, 30 January 2014. https://newrepublic.com/article/116239/
united-nations-lounge-drinking-diplomats.
Marks, Edward B. A World of Art: The United Nations Collection (Rome: Il Cigno Galileo
Galilei, 1999).
Neumann, Iver B. Diplomatic Tenses: A Social Evolutionary Perspective on Diplomacy
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020).
Nisbett, Melissa and James Doeser. The Art of Soft Power: A Study of Cultural Diplomacy
at the UN Oce in Geneva (London: King’s College, 2017).
Sandvik, Maria Veie. ‘Per Krohg’s Painting in the United Nations Security Council’.
Vereinte Nationen: German Review of the United Nations 62 (4) (2014), 156-162.
Teltsch, Kathleen. ‘U.N. Is Given 2 Chinese Works of Art’. The New York Times, 8 October
1974, 86.
UN Press Feature No. 213/Rev. 8 (New York: UN, 28 February 1974).
Urquhart, Brian. A Life in Peace and War (New York: Harper and Row, 1987).
USSR Exhibition: New York. Moscow, H-136-11, n.p. (1959), pamphlet.
Wineld, Nicole. ‘UN Collection Blends Art with Politics and Diplomacy’. Associated
Press, 3 January 2000.
Loraine Sievers
co-authored the fourth edition of The Procedure of the UN Security Council
(Oxford University Press, 2014) and is the Director of the SCProcedure web-
site (http://www.scprocedure.org), which analyses new Security Council pro-
cedural developments as they occur. She served as a full-time United Nations
staf member for over 30 years, concluding her career as Chief of the Security
Council Secretariat Branch. In that position, among her responsibilities were
providing guidance to Council members, especially each month’s rotating
Council President, on the Council’s working methods; assisting the Council’s
Informal Working Group on documents and procedure; and serving as liai-
son between the Council members and the architectural team managing the
Capital Master Plan renovations of the UN premises. Previously, she served
as Secretary to the Afghanistan and Sierra Leone Sanctions Committees, as
a political analyst in the Regional Afairs Division, and as a departmental
speechwriter. She contributed to the organisation’s Blue Book series on crises
addressed by the UN, the Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council and
the Secretary-General’s Press Analysis.
Downloaded from Brill.com02/24/2021 01:43:03PM
via free access
