Twenty young painters of French tradition

The exposure Twenty young painters of French tradition which takes place in 1941 in Paris is the first manifestation of the painting of French avant-garde resisting openly the ideology Nazi E of “the degenerated Art”. It gathers the majority of the artists who, less than one ten years later, will develop the nonfigurative Peinture.

Circumstances

The exposure, whose Vernissage eleven months after the beginning of the German Occupation takes place, on Saturday, May 10, 1941 at 3 p.m. with the Gallery Braun (18 rue Louis- the-Large) in Paris, joins together paintings of Bazaine, Beaudin, Berçot, Bertholle, Bores, Coutaud, Desnoyer, Gischia, Lapicque, Lasne, Lucien Lautrec, Legueult, Moal, Manessier, André Marchand, Pignon, Suzanne Roger, Singier, Tal Coat and Charles Walch. The name of Estève figure also with the catalog but any of its fabrics is not presented.

The exposure had been prepared by Jean Bazaine and the editor André Lejard. The majority of the painters knew themselves since the beginning of the years 1930 (in particular Bazaine, Bertholle, Moal and Manessier). Singier was a friend of Walch which had had to contact the Braun gallery and, belonging to the committee of the Salon of autumn, to invite Legueult and Marchand.

Good number of the " Twenty young people peintres" will partiperont, near Gaston Diehl, with the creation of the Salon of May.

Testimonys

“I proposed to the title of Twenty young painters of French tradition . It was at the same time a truth and a trickery. That one remembers: at that time the Nazis continued of their destroying fury all the forms of artistic expression being attached so that they named degenerated art in what the freedom and the joy of creation continued precisely. It was thus important to give the exchange.”

Andre Lejart, Twenty young painters of French tradition, 1941-1967 , gallery Georges Bongers, Paris, March-April 1967.

“ Painters of French tradition , it was with double edge. There was the word French on the one hand, which wanted to say that the French tradition existed and at the same time the word tradition was used so that the Germans are not wary too much. (...) I remember varnishing rather well: two German officers arrived who are advanced until the medium of the gallery. They threw a glance, looked at, turned the heels. It is all. It was the time when the Germans wanted to still be nice.”

Jean Bazaine, maintenance, in History of Art, 1940-1944 of Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac, publications of the Sorbonne, Paris, 1986, pp. 351-352.

“All these painters, of very diverse age and tendency, were agreement on the resistance necessary of painting. What made them accept this title general and assuaging, intended to reassure the occupant (...) It was not about anything else - of nothing less - to allow, by surprise, an exposure judéo-Marxist , in all his forms, at one time when the galleries dared to show only art of obedience Nazi. After refusal of a certain number of galleries, the Braun Gallery accepted the risk of the exposure, which was accommodated by streams of abuse of a well drawn up press.”

Jean Bazaine, quoted in Jean Moal of Michel-Georges Bernard, Ides and Calendes, Neuchâtel, 2001, pp.66-67

“This expression had been chosen by Bazaine. It did not shock me. Being given the atmosphere lasting the Occupation, it was about a title a little provocant and I took it thus. One could take it differently; the French tradition, in fact also the branches, being attached by Cézanne to all the French school, passed by the Fauvisme and the Cubisme”.

Alfred Manessier, discussion with Jean-Paul Ameline and Nathalie Leleu, in a parallel history, 1960-1990 , National center of art and culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris, 1993, p.53

“the richness even of the School of Paris, it was the reception from abroad, the international contribution which had existed quite front us. The French tradition, for us, it was this reception. This title wanted to mean that for us, the French tradition, it was this esthetics rejected by the Nazism. We were very conscious that we fight against these interdicts which prevailed in Germany. We were aware to belong to a intellectual resistance.”

Alfred Manessier, maintenance, in History of Art, Paris, 1940-1944 of Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac, publications of the Sorbonne, Paris, 1986, p. 397.

Judgment

“This demonstration will enter the history, attesting the persistence of the French contemporary art, and presenting works (often pre-war period) of these young old painters of thirty to forty-five years, which go during these four years until the Release, but also a little after, to compose this avant-garde claiming all at the same time French tradition and of a certain design of modernity.”

Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac in History of Art, Paris, 1940-1944 , publications of the Sorbonne, Paris, 1986, pp. 167-168.

Selective bibliography

Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, History of art, Paris 1940-1944, National order, Traditions and Modernities , foreword of Michel Winock, Publications of the Sorbonne, Paris, 1986.

Internal bonds

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