United States Of Abstraction : Artistes Américains En France, 1946-1964

Exhibition at the Musée d'arts de Nantes, 12 February - 24 May 2021 ;
then at the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 3 July - 17 October 2021

At the end of the Second World War, more than 400 American painters, musicians and writers, men and women, continued to choose to come to France to study and create. Major artists such as Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell and Ellsworth Kelly began their careers between the United States and France.

Through a hundred or so paintings, sculptures and drawings from private and public collections in Europe and the United States, this exhibition catalogue examines this intense presence and the way in which it contributed to the redefinition of abstract art in France at a time when the global geography of art was being disrupted.