In a discussion of Western art, the influence of Eastern aesthetic philosophy has often been overlooked and discounted. In 1956 however, Contemporary Calligraphers: John Marin, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, an exhibition organized by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, was an intentional exception. As Frederick S. Wright points out in the foreword to this exhibition catalogue, the East had continued to understand about representation that the West had “thought dead and forgotten”: that the simplest acts of mark-making can be both beautiful and deeply communicative. The three painters of this exhibition, Marin, Tobey, and Graves, all have ties to an Eastern mentality througha fundamental respect for the line and symbol. In referencing diverse global influences, the exhibition’s creators write a more complete historical context for these artists and claim the establishment.