Ackerhof 0 20 th century art

The “ New School of Paris ”

The term “ New School of Paris ” refers to a exhibition, with its suggestion of figurative group of very diverse artists, and in its art in the tradition of the old masters. broadest sense, to any independent artist working in the French capital in the years Lejard had this to say about the choice of around the Second World War, whether title : “ It was simultaneously the truth figurative or abstract. and a confidence trick. People should For the sake of pertinence, art historians remember that at that time, in their prefer to restrict the term to painters who destructive fury, the Nazis were pursuing genuinely upheld and popularised non- all forms of artistic expression linked to figurative tendencies during that period, what they called “ degenerate art ”, such as Jean Bazaine, Alfred Manessier, precisely because of their affirmation of Roger Bissière, Jean Le Moal, Édouard the free-dom and joy of creation. So Pignon or Maurice Estève. These artists something had to change ”. practiced a form of expression close to If the Germans understood the implicit pure abstraction during the years when attack, they did not stand in the way, the Nazi regime wanted to banish as Jean Bazaine recalled : “ I remember the modernist tendencies, which it described private view quite well : two German as degenerate art. During this difficult officers arrived and walked to the centre period, they expressed their resistance of the gallery. They glanced around, looked against a realistic propaganda style that at each other, and turned on their heels. also held sway in France. During the That was all. It was at the time when the German occupation, under Vichy France, Germans still wanted to be nice. ” they inaugurated an exhibition entitled These non-figurative artists often came Twenty Young Painters in the French together to express the vitality of French Tradition at the Galerie Braun in Paris on art and modernist tendencies. Most of Saturday 10 May 1941. The event was the them contributed to the establishment of brainchild of the painter Jean Bazaine and the Salon de Mai, which was founded in the publisher André Lejard, and brought 1943 by the critic Gaston Diehl and held its together artists such as Jean Bertholle, first exhibition in1945 under his presi- Jean Le Moal, Alfred Manessier, Gustave dency. They exhibited alongside figurative Singier, Pierre Tal Coat and Charles Walch. artists, with no other distinction than a pronounced taste for modernity and the refusal of any academic principles. Founded in 1946, the “ Salon des Réalités Nouvelles ” was more restrictive, being exclusively reserved for abstract artists.

In the 1950s, the term “ New School of Paris ” continued to refer to these exponents of French abstract tendencies. Jean Bazaine, The Man with the Certain gallerists, such as Raymond Glass of Wine , 1946, oil on canvas Nacenta (Galerie Charpentier) or Denise The expression “ in the French tradition ” René, regularly presented their works was designed to express the participants’ in exhibitions that served as aesthetic nationalism, but also to reassure manifestoes. the Germans as to the content of the

musee-unterlinden.com 1