French Modernisms
Perspectives on Art Before, During, and After Vichy

Argues that the art establishment's promotion of Vichy-era values led to the decline of French art.

Michèle C. Cone (Author)

9780521783507, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 March 2001

236 pages, 35 b/w illus.
25.4 x 17.8 x 1.4 cm, 0.63 kg

"...an thoughtful, engaging study... Cone's nonsensationalist tone makes her observations seem all the more startling, as we see not only venality in action but also naivete, self-interest, and survival as motivators. [...] She ...shows how the country's self-protective instincts and phobia towards outside influences have led to provincialism and marginalization." ARTNews

This book examines the history of modern art in France from 1935 to 1970, demonstrating the close link between art and politics in this period. In essays focusing on key events in the exhibition and criticism of modern art, Michèle Cone provides a broader context for the racism and xenophobia that characterize Vichy-era France. Her analyses demonstrate that art critics, artists, and even the state attempted to exclude the Other - Jewish artists in the years leading up to and including World War II, American artists in the postwar period - in an effort to safeguard the integrity of indigenous traditions. Cone argues that the decline of French art in the second half of the century was caused, not by the invasion of the Abstract Expressionists and other foreign artists, but by the Parisian art establishment itself, which continued to promote national identity and tradition, the dominant values of the Vichy period.

Introduction: art, nationality and national tradition: the case of France from 1937 to 1968
1. Collaboration foretold: French art of the present in Hitler's Berlin
2. Decadence and renewal in the decorative arts under Vichy
3. Vampires, viruses, and Lucien Rebatet: antisemitic art criticism during Vichy
4. Tricolor painting in Vichy France
5. Jean Paulhan and his artist friends
6. The Picasso album: a 1943 landmark of artistic resistance
7. Wartime guilt: French furniture of the 1940s
8. The mature Richier, the young César: expressionist confluences in French postwar sculpture
9. Pierre restany, the French fifties and the Americanization of the everyday
Epilogue
Hitler equals de Gaulle in a May '68 poster.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD], History of art & design styles: from c 1900 - [ACX]