L’art en guerre. France, 1938–1947: From Picasso to Dubuffet

Organized by the Musée d’Art modern de la Ville de Paris, Paris-Musées, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, this exhibition shows how, in the ominous context of Nazi-occupied France during World War II, artists rebelled against official official slogans by coming up with novel aesthetic solutions that changed the form and content of art.

More than 500 works by approximately one hundred artists, including Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Vassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, and Joseph Steib, testify to how these creators resisted and reacted to adversity, making “war on war” with the only forms and materials available to them in those times of penury, even in environments of incredible hostility toward any expression of freedom. All that had formerly been overshadowed by the looming figure of history, now brought together in a unique exhibition.