Arnold Mesches, Artist Who Was Recorded by the F.B.I., Dies at 93

Arnold Mesches, a socially conscious painter whose political activities were recorded by the F.B.I. for more than 25 years in a thick dossier that he later used for his series “The F.B.I. Files,” died on Nov. 5 at his home in Gainesville, Fla. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by his wife, the novelist Jill Ciment.

Mr. Mesches (pronounced MESH-ees) was a scenic artist in Hollywood when his work for the Communist Party came to the attention of the F.B.I. in 1945. A file the bureau started began filling up quickly the next year, when he dropped his work as a storyboard artist on a Tarzan film and took part in a strike against the studios.

Over the years, agents and informers kept track of Mr. Mesches’s day-to-day activities, reporting to headquarters on matters large and small. If he signed a petition, it went into his file. When he turned in an illustration for Mad magazine, the fact was duly noted. One informant, noting his paint-spattered pants, wrote that Mr. Mesches “dressed like a Communist.”

In 1956 most of his artwork was stolen from his studio, including dozens of paintings and drawings inspired by the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. He strongly suspected that the F.B.I. was behind the break-in.

And so it went until 1972, when the surveillance sputtered to its conclusion.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Mesches obtained his file under the Freedom of Information Act and reaped a bonanza of 760 pages, with classified information ruled over in heavy black lines. They had a certain look, he decided.

“I saw other people’s files and realized they were aesthetically beautiful,” he told The New York Times in 2003. “Kind of like Franz Kline sketches. Those big, black slashes where they block things out.”