Andrew Michael Geller was an American architect, painter, and graphic designer. He is widely known for his uninhibited, sculptural beach houses in the coastal regions of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut during the 1950s and '60s, as well as for his indirect role in the 1959 Kitchen Debate between Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, which began at an exhibit Geller had helped design for the American National Exhibition in Moscow.
Apex Department Store Building, Pawtucket, Rhode Island (1969)
American National Exhibition
The American National Exhibition, held from July 25 to September 4, 1959, was an exhibition of American art, fashion, cars, capitalism, model homes and futuristic kitchens. Held at Sokolniki Park in Moscow, then capital of the Soviet Union, the exhibition attracted 3 million visitors during its six-week run. The Cold War event is historic for the "Kitchen Debate" between then-Vice President of the United States Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, held first at the model kitchen table, outfitted by General Electric, and then continued in the color television studio where it was broadcast to both countries, with each leader arguing the merits of his system, and a conversation that "escalated from washing machines to nuclear warfare."
Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev at the American National Exhibition, July 1959
By 1949, Michigan Representative George Dondero was already denouncing NCASF as communist.
In 1957, Rockwell Kent had the first American solo exhibition in the Soviet Union.
In 1959, Francis E. Walter, the HUAC Chair, found links between half the artists and communism.