Paris without End: On French Art since World War

Abstract:In 1940, the British Admiralty detained a British passenger ship sailing from Lisbon to New York at the port of Hamilton, Bermuda, for a contraband search. Customs authorities seized four crates containing hundreds of artworks by leading European artists. Suspected of being sent to New York for sale by the French art dealer Martin Fabiani for the economic benefit of German-occupied France, the captured collection—originally the property of art dealer Ambroise Vollard—was confiscated as a prize of war and sent to Ottawa, Canada, for wartime safekeeping. The National Gallery of Canada stored the collection from 1940 to 1949, when British courts instructed the collection’s Canadian custodian to release it to its rightful owners, Fabiani and the Vollard heirs. This essay reframes the wartime journey of the Vollard-Fabiani collection and challenges the long-held notion that it belongs to the narrative of Nazi-looted cultural property. This essay also highlights an important role played by the National Gallery of Canada during World War II.

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“Purely Artistic”

Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques ◽

10.3167/hrrh.2020.460206 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 89-109

Author(s):

Danielle Beaujon

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Daily Life ◽

The Political ◽

World War ◽

Police Intervention ◽

Civilizing Mission ◽

French Art ◽

Police Surveillance ◽

A Performance

Following World War II, French police surveillance in Algeria increasingly focused on the threat of Algerian nationalism and policing theater proved no exception. The police assiduously investigated the contents of plays and the background of performers, seeking to determine whether a performance could be considered “purely artistic.” In cracking down on theater, the police attempted to produce “pro-French” art that could influence Algerian loyalties, a cultural civilizing mission carried out by the unlikely figure of the beat cop. Ultimately, their mission failed. Live performances presented an opportunity for spontaneity and improvisation that revealed the weakness of colonial policing. In this article, I argue that in trying to separate art from politics, the police created an impossibly capacious idea of the political, giving officers justification for inserting themselves into intimate moments of daily life. The personal, the interpersonal, and the artistic became a realm of police intervention.

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Jed Perl, Paris Without End: On French Art Since World War I

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism ◽

10.1111/1540_6245.jaac47.4.0394 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 47 (4) ◽

pp. 394-396

Author(s):

D.D. TODD

Keyword(s):

World War I ◽

World War ◽

French Art

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Alphons Diepenbrock and the European world of composers at the fin-de-siècle

Muzikologija ◽

10.2298/muz0202157v ◽

2002 ◽

pp. 157-169 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

der van

Keyword(s):

The Netherlands ◽

First World War ◽

Short Description ◽

Early Years ◽

World War ◽

The Third ◽

The First World War ◽

French Art ◽

Renewal Movement ◽

First World

The article consists of three parts. In the first part the author gives a survey of the large artistic renewal that took place in the Netherlands around 1900. Special attention is given to "de beweging van Tachtig"(the movement of the "Tachtigers"), a renewal movement in literature in which the composer Alphons Diepenbrock was involved. In the second part a short description of the life and work of this most important Dutch composer of the end of the nineteenth century is given. In his early years Diepenbrock orientated himself to composers like Wagner, especially around the First World War (in which the Netherlands remained a neutral country), and he became a fervent admirer of French art. His music is a unique synthesis of Wagner's chromaticism, the word-bound rhythms of plain-chant and the polyphonic music of the old Flemish schools of Ockeghem and Josquin. In the third part the author deals with a couple of Diepenbrock's (artistic) contacts. There are highlights on Mahler, Sch?nberg and Debussy, primarily based on their correspondence.

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