Laurence Bertrand Dorléac Examines Postwar French Art Scene

In her book "Après la guerre," Laurence Bertrand Dorléac analyzes the French art scene in 1946-1947, arguing that the immediate postwar period was a moment of suspended experimentation that quickly gave way to rigid dogmas. In 1946, communist and sympathizer artists still embraced modern abstraction alongside figures like Léger, Picasso, Pignon, and the École de Paris, as well as artists exploring traumatic materials such as Debré, Stael, Fautrier, and Dubuffet. However, by 1947, the Communist Party imposed an inflexible realist doctrine, and the French art establishment, obsessed with 19th-century rationalist and academic heritage, failed to support new models shaped by catastrophe. Expressionisms were condemned. Dorléac concludes that French art reconstruction was built on archaisms, a dynamic she suggests persists today.