Thirty-five years ago, in the height of the Red Scare, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were tried and convicted for treason.

Unknown Secrets: Art in the Rosenberg Era is an exhibit in the Palmer Museum of Art that reflects the effect that political controversy had on artists then and now.

The collection of the exhibit is due to the work of Robert Okun, who was friends with one of the Rosenberg's sons who were adopted shortly after their parents' execution.

Besides collecting art from the era, Okun commissioned 24 contemporary artists to represent modern ideas using various techniques for the show. The exhibit is an interesting ethology of the turbulent times of the early 50s as seen by artists of the time and by contemporary artists looking back on history.

The Rosenbergs were the cause for much attention in and outside of the United States. To Americans, as well as artists, they symbolized many different things. Almost all of the artists featured in the show present images that are sympathetic to the Rosenberg's plight.

They saw the trial as misguided justice on the part of the government. In a work by Wordsworth, titled "Homage to Ethel, Julius and Morton," the word "justice" is written behind black vertical stripes placed on a cloth flag of red stripes.

In many pieces the characters on the side of the prosecution are pictured in demonic or puppeteer poses, making decisions and pointing accusing, unfounded fingers at people. In a painting titled "Eisenhower, McCarthy and Dulles" (1953) artist Alice Neel portrays the three in a harsh manner; all are pictured as malign caricatures except Senator McCarthy, the mastermind of the infamous black list, who is pictured as a minotaur putting people in his labyrinth of Communism where they will become trapped and lost.

In the Sue Coe's 1987 work "Needs of the State", the artist illustrates prominent characters of the times: McCarthy and Sohn, Nixon, Eisenhower, a Granddragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and other notables, including the Pope. Each holds a red string attached to an electric chair, where a figure with truth written across its chest waits to be executed. Next to the seated victim stand important figures of our times, such as Picasso and Einstein, but it is the Rosenbergs who are closest to the chair. The piece seems to be a warning to people who deviate from the norm: big brother is watching.

Okun has written that Pablo Picasso and many other Europeans were sympathetic to the Rosenbergs' cause, which they felt represented the decline of American democracy. Picasso did a quick sketch in a lithograph printed to raise money for the defense of the unfortunate couple.

Others see the Rosenbergs as martyrs and show the couple in sacrificial poses. Artist Alex Grey depicts the couple in "In Memory of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg" with two goat skulls that are painted in the American flag, and bordered with a Jewish star. In "Book Burners," a work by Rockwell Kent, a winged Ethel Rosenberg as a classical martyr: she is being burned at the stake like Joan of Arc.

The show displays how events like the Rosenberg trial effect not only the media but also the art of the times. In the Boston Globe, Rebecca Nemser wrote, " 'Unknown Secrets' the show is about the Rosenbergs, but it is also about media images and the grip that they have on our imagination. . .No single piece in the show is a great work of art, but it all adds up to the sum of its parts."