Art of the Defeat, France 1940-1944 - Hardcover

Dorleac, Laurence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892368918 ISBN 13: 9780892368914

Publisher: Getty Research Institute, 2009

Synopsis

Art of the Defeat provides an unflinching look at the art scene in France during the German occupation. Beginning with Adolf Hitler’s staging of the armistice at Rethondes, the book offers a survey of Nazi and Vichy artistic policies, key events and organizations, and individual acts of collaboration and resistance. Examined in the text are the demonization of foreigners and modernists, the looting of state museums and Jewish collections, the glorification of Philippe Pétain and French national identity, and the official junket by French artists to Germany. The narrative is grounded by archival research and discussion of works by Gérard Ambroselli, Jean Bazaine, Arno Breker, François Cogné, Aristide Maillol, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and dozens of other artists and artisans. The sum is a pioneering exposé of the deployment of art to hold darkness at bay.

About this title

About the Author:

Laurence Bertrand Dorléac is a professeur des universités and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Jane Marie Todd is the translator of over forty scholarly books.  Serge Guilbaut is a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Review:

 “A sophisticated work [that] will be of enduring importance.”—Bookfourm 

“Laurence Bertrand Dorléac's study about the visual arts in occupied France is based on an impressive array of material from the notoriously difficult to access French archives."—The Art Newspaper, April 2009

About this edition

• Publisher: Getty Research Institute
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0892368918
• ISBN 13: 9780892368914
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416