Encounter Books, along with The National Civic Art Society and Ethics and Public Policy Center, co-sponsored a panel discussion in celebration of the life of author Bruce Cole (1938-2018) and his book Art from the Swamp: How Washington Bureaucrats Squander Millions on Awful Art. 

Cole passed away in early 2018, leaving behind a nearly completed manuscript of the book, which was finished by his colleagues at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Cole was an EPPC Senior Fellow since 2012, chairman of the National Endowment of the Humanities from 2001 to 2009, and he was a member of NCAS’s Board of Advisors. 

Watch the panel discussion below:

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“Bruce was deeply devoted to the good and the beautiful in Western art and to the values and traditions that the best of Western art embodies,” wrote EPPC President Ed Whelan in his obituary for Cole. “Bruce drew on his rich learning and his ardent love of this country to work to build a culture that elevates and instructs. He was a wonderful colleague, and we will miss him terribly.” Read Bruce Cole’s obituary here.