The subsequent media coverage of the open letter to the president of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a now iconic group photograph, gave notoriety to a group of artists including Sterne. After the publication of the letter in the "New York Times" on May 22, 1950, an editorial in "The Herald Tribune" of May 23, 1950 dubbed the group the "Irascible 18" and attacked the artists for "distortion of fact" in claiming the Metropolitan had "contempt" for modern painting. "Life" magazine's coverage of the protest in their January 15, 1951 edition included a photograph by Nina Leen. 15 of the letter's 28 signees arrived for the photo shoot: Theodoros Stamos, Jimmy Ernst, Barnett Newman, James Brooks, Mark Rothko, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, and Hedda Sterne.