The Michael Werner collection or the little I had seen of it, pushed me to go further in my thinking since having read the introduction for "Art at War". I knew that Claude Rocca would more than complete the thoughts buzzing around in my head. (I might add that this buzzing went on all night and my dreams were colourful and dramatic).
So there had been 900 works in the first exhibition of which I had probably digested 80 and now......400 works by over 100 artists all backed up by film and documentary material.
Of its kind, I would think that this is the most important retrospective - ever - on this period. It has never been done before bringing together all the artists who creatively forged resolutely ahead inside interment camps, prisons.....or if they had been fortunate enough to escape such horrendous punishment, many were condemned to the new realties of the «dark days» during the occupation and the Vichy regime.
Some, and Picasso as we know, went on working either in Paris as he did or in the unoccupied zones and were backed by the non conformists. By contrast, the Jeanne Bucher Galerie (opened in 1925 in the Rue Cherche Midi in Paris and today has the most beautiful space in the rue de Seine), was one of the rare outlets for work by some of the «degenerate» artists denounced by propaganda by both the French and the Germans.
There are ten powerful sections in this exhibition with a catalogue not to be cast aside as it is, one of the best I have bought in years and a reference book for so many of the artists I follow today.
We plunge into surrealism. The opening room is a copy of the Beaux Arts Gallery which opened its doors to a restrospective of the surrealists in 1938. Duchamp with his ready made, Dali, Masson, Delvaux, Ernst, De Chirico, Tanguy, Bellmer with his dolls which send shivers up my spine ....had these artists some weird premonition of what was about to happen? This was, from my point of view one of the most difficult sections to cope with. I am not a surrealist fan although Yves Tanguy and André Masson are artists I will turn corners to see - perhaps not Dali.
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| Yves Tanguy - Inspiration 1929 |
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| Paul Delvaux - Les Noeuds roses 1937 |
Moving into the camps is not going to be easy either and yet Wols, Max Ernst, Otto Freundlich if seen out of the context of this exhibition would not be seen perhaps in the same way as I suddenly did. I had not looked at such pictures in that way - ever -
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| Wols - La squelette de hareng - 1939 |
Wols with the Herring skeleton - now looking at each line, I saw another meaning:
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| Wols - Le Petit bar du camp 1940 |
or another
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| Max Ernst - Apatrides - 1939-40 |
Max Ernst with «Apatrides» - 1939-1940: (concept describing the lack of any nationality), I had never thought of files as being so treacherous:
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| Otto Freundlich - Rosace ll - 1941 |
Otto Freundlich - rose-window ll (1941) - can such colour depict war?
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| Salomon 1940-42 |
The other paintings said what they meant to. With the exception of Charlotte Salomon, (I had seen many of the drawings she had done when in hiding in Nice. «Life? or Theatre?» at the Jewish Institue. They had branded me -) Claude was not prolonging his descriptions. Her work was difficult enough (C.S.) so I was happy to move on.
Slowly we proceed. Each person in the
group - and most of us were of that period - or a little later - were deep in thought....the other women had lived in Europe. I was a war child from
Australia....
Exiles, Refugees and Secrecy......
The list
of artists is long. Those who escaped the camps, those who left for
America or were able to, those who joined communities in France....I
wonder if art is easier to protect than the written word? Art is so
visual and does not translate - word can lose its sense in a new
language. Claude interprets the paintings so well and it was fascinating
to look at the «recuperation» work carried out by some artsts. Alberto
Magnelli for instance....then Chaïm Soutine «Pigs» done in 1941-42. A
Jew painting pigs? I could now get the full implication of what the
painting meant.
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| Alberto Magnelli - collage à la ficelle1942 |
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| Alberto Magnelli - Collage sur papier à musiique - 1941 |
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| Chaim Soutine -les Porcs 1941-42 |
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| Victor Brauner - Collectifs drawings 1941 |
Or the collective works done by artists (ex DADA or Surrealists) working together in Marseille
Of course, some artists used their work as propaganda - the women’s place in this world - mother - although I would think that André Fougeron’s «Rue de Paris» 1943 was not respecting the political norm.
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| Edouard Pignon - Maternité au lange 1942 |
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| André Fougeron - Rue de Paris 1943 |
Picasso has a room of his own. In true Picasso tradition, he had left Nice and returned to work in Paris. How on earth did he get away with it? Threatened by the Gestapo and French collaborators....I guess we all know the story too about Vlaminck who violently accused him of having "dragged French painting int the most fatal dead end" Unimaginable! Of course, Picasso doubled his energy improvising, scultping, painting, writing....But then I had never though of his still life in the way Claude described them. People starving and the desire, dream of food which was depicted by so many artists.
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| P.P. Tete de taureau 1942-43 |
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| Buffet - nature morte aux verres et cerises 1943 |
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| Nature morte à la tête de mort, poireaux 1945 |
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| PP. L'homme au mouton 1943-44 |
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| Braque nature morte à la serviette 1943 |
In the Museum of Modern Art, propaganda continues. Some artists we, I admire belong to those who worked with the regime. I often try to convince myself that they were not complying with but painting in order to survive....
The Jeanne Bucher Gallery too as I said in the beginning must have been a breath of fresh air for so many. German, Jewish, degenerates were protected and their work shown...artists I cross borders for and for them alone, I will be going back to this exhibition and to finish this chapter with liberty, winding down and the «anartists»
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| Kandinsky Complexité Simple 1939 |
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| Kandinsky - Pointed 1939 |
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| Paul Klee Clown 1940 |
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| Louis-Auguste Déchelette - Les Parisiennes 1940 |
One thing is certain - I will be looking at all artists who painted during that period - very differently.
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