Fourth Republic

About

In 1946 with the resignation of de Gaulle and two referendums, the Fourth Republic marked a twelve year period of political turmoil with 18 different prime-ministers as France struggled to rediscover its identity. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs in 1947 the RPF (Rassemblement de Peuple Francais) began organising a series of national strikes, and in 1948 the situation resulted in bread rationing and the devaluation of the Franc.

A consequence of the ongoing instability was fervent creativity, as artists felt impelled to explore new ways of thinking and seeing, a new outlook. In 1946 Merleau-Ponty had just published his “Phenomenology of Perception”, and Sartre “Les Temps Modernes”; Le Corbusier designed the “Cité Radieuse” in Marseille; and the avant-garde “Salon des Réalités Nouvelles” was launched; while the communist painter André Fougeron won the Prix National des Arts; in 1947 Dior launched the “New Look”; the Musée National d’Art Moderne opened with “Art et Resistance”; and Galerie Maeght held the “Exposition International du Surrealisme” organised by Breton and Duchamp. It was the era of Camus, de Beauvoir, Beckett and Ionesco. Art movements such as Tachisme, Art Brut, CoBrA, Espace, Abstraction Lyrique…

This exhibition at Hanina Fine Arts charts these developments through a selection of representative works from this extraordinary era. Including Camille Bryen’s important Tachiste work “Fomalhaut” exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in 1957; and Abstraction Lyrique works by Jean Le Moal and James Pichette; CoBrA artist Georges Collignon’s “Vives Controverses” exhibited in the international CoBrA exhibition in 1951; geometric abstract works by “Espace” group founders Silvano Bozzolini and Emile Gilioli; avant-garde think-tank “Centre de Recherche” organiser Jean Deyrolle; prominent women artists Marie Raymond and Huguette Bertrand; and émigrés Pierre Dmitrienko and Youla Chapoval.