Dates: March 16–September 8, 2013
Curators: Jacqueline Munck (Chief Curator at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris) and Laurence Bertrand Dorléac (art historian and professor at the Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po (CHSP) in Paris and the Institut Universitaire de France)
Sponsor: Fundación BBVA
Organized by the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris-Musées and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, L’Art en guerre, France 1938-1947: From Picasso to Dubuffet shows how, in the ominous and oppressive context of Nazi-occupied France during World War II, the artists of the day rebelled against official slogans by coming up with novel aesthetic solutions that changed the content of art.
More than 500 works by approximately one hundred artists, including documents, photographs and films brought to light here for the first time, have come together in this singular exhibition, made possible by the remarkable sponsorship of Fundación BBVA, which testifies to how these creators resisted and reacted to adversity, “making war on war” with the only forms and materials available in those times of penury, even in environments of incredible hostility toward any expression of individual freedom.