Made in France: Art from 1945 to the Present

January 17 - April 20, 2003

Guest curator Rebecca DeRoo, Assistant Professor of Art History at Washington University, draws on several St. Louis collections to explore a range of artistic practices used to respond to social and political situations in France over the last sixty years. While postwar figurative artists expressed the anxiety and loneliness of the modern individual still coping with the tragedies of the Second World War, abstract painters abandoned overt subject matter and instead used expressive brushstrokes to convey emotions. Photographers in 1950s France responded to the perceived need for unity following the épuration (or purge of collaborators following the occupation) by photographing scenes of daily life and childhood events, which they considered to be universal subjects. Op artists of the 1960s and 1970s sought to create a more active audience by encouraging spectators to move around their work in order to perceive its optical effects. Pop artists, responding to the rapid influx of American-style consumer goods in the 1950s and 1960s, introduced materials from popular culture into their work. Many contemporary artists rejected traditional artistic styles in favor of everyday materials, using simple items such as linen cloth and photographs to heighten the emotional impact of their work.

Artists represented in the exhibition include Pablo Picasso, Pierre Soulages, Jean Dubuffet, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Annette Messager. The exhibition is drawn from the permanent collections of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and private collections.