Mark Tobey was the first us painter in the XX century who won the Leone d’Oro at the Biennale of 1958. We can consider this event as a goal of an entire program based on spreading American Art all over the «free» world. This award is not very popular among the public that usually recognize as the first Leone d’Oro won by a us artist the one they gave to Rauschenberg in 1964. The Leone d’Oro assigned to Tobey signs for the very first time the importance of us Art in the world of art in a moment in which basically Abstract Expressionism was at the end of his development and in which in Italy the debate among abstracts and realist was in the public eye. With this article I want to point out some questions about American Art and its advance in Italy during the 50es starting from Tobey’s example pursuing to a general consideration on us exhibition strategies at the Venice Biennale during the first period of the Cold War.