# John Frohnmayer Oregon lawyer and arts administrator (b. 1942); chairman of the [[National Endowment for the Arts]] 1989–1992 — the man in the crossfire for the hottest years of the [[NEA Culture Wars]]. Appointed by [[George H.W. Bush]] months into the Serrano/Mapplethorpe firestorm, he tried to appease both sides and satisfied neither: defunded then restored the Artists Space AIDS exhibition (1989), vetoed the peer-approved [[NEA Four]] grants (1990), and was forced to resign in **February 1992** after [[Pat Buchanan]]'s primary campaign ran ads attacking Bush over NEA-funded "filthy art." His memoir *Leaving Town Alive* is the insider account of an agency head ground between a mailing-list outrage machine and a White House unwilling to defend him. ## See Also - [[NEA Culture Wars]]