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| Cercle de la Jeune Peinture | |
|---|---|
| Name | Cercle de la Jeune Peinture |
| Founded | 1947 |
| Dissolved | 1962 |
| Headquarters | Paris |
| Country | France |
| Notable members | Nicolas de Staël, Bernard Buffet, Jean-Michel Atlan, Jean Bertholle, Gérard Schneider |
Cercle de la Jeune Peinture was a post‑World War II Parisian artists' group formed in 1947 that sought to renew figurative and expressive painting in opposition to academic and conservative tendencies. The circle brought together painters linked to Paris, Montparnasse, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and salons such as the Salon d'Automne, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles and Salon des Indépendants. Through exhibitions, manifestos, and critical debate the group intersected with figures and institutions including collectors, critics, and galleries active in the postwar European art world.
The group's origins trace to the immediate postwar cultural ferment around 1947 when artists reacted to wartime dislocations and to movements like Surrealism, Dada, and Cubism. Key early meetings occurred in studios near Rue du Dragon, in cafés frequented by artists alongside writers from Les Temps modernes and critics writing for Cahiers d'Art and Art d'aujourd'hui. The circle staged collective shows that entered the calendar of Parisian annuals, coordinating with galleries such as Galerie Maeght, Galerie Louis Carré, and Galerie Drouant-David and interacting with patrons from the Musée National d'Art Moderne, the Centre Pompidou's antecedents, and municipal exhibition spaces in Paris arrondissements. Political and cultural tensions of the early Cold War, including debates involving the Cominform period and intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre, informed critical reception and alignments among members. By the late 1950s internal disputes and the evolving international market—linked to influences from New York, Abstract Expressionism, and exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art—led to the circle's dissolution in 1962, though many members continued individual careers tied to institutions like the Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, and regional French museums.
Founders and associated painters included figures active in Parisian postwar practice: Nicolas de Staël, Bernard Buffet, Jean-Michel Atlan, Gérard Schneider, Jean Bertholle, Olivier Debré, Zao Wou-Ki, Édouard Pignon, Jean Messagier, Roger Hilton, Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Raoul Ubac, André Lanskoy, Georges Mathieu, Jean-Marc Nattier, Félix Cytron, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Fernand Léger, Maurice Estève, Paul Klee, Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), Pierre Alechinsky, Antoni Tàpies, Balthus, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Victor Pasmore, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Sam Francis, Arshile Gorky, Kees van Dongen, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Paul Cézanne, Émile Bernard, Georges Braque, Otto Freundlich, Max Ernst, André Breton, Alberto Magnelli and younger painters who exhibited with the circle in later years such as Yves Klein, Françoise Gilot, Jean Dubuffet, Victor Vasarely and Niki de Saint Phalle. Critics and curators who amplified the circle included André Malraux, Michel Tapié, Roland Penrose, Lionello Venturi and Pierre Restany.
Members combined figurative tendencies with expressive abstraction, negotiating legacies of Cubism, Fauvism, and Surrealism while responding to Abstract Expressionism from New York. Influences cited in critical writings ranged from Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse to Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, alongside contemporary peers like Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages. The circle's painters engaged techniques associated with impasto, gestural brushwork, and restrained palettes or vivid coloration, often referencing themes drawn from French provincial life, Parisian streetscape, and mythopoetic subjects explored by Jean Cocteau and Marc Chagall. Dialogues with sculptors and photographers—such as Alberto Giacometti and Henri Cartier-Bresson—and interactions with printers and lithographers at ateliers linked to Goupil and Atelier 17 informed print and mixed‑media practices among members. Debates around figuration versus pure abstraction positioned the circle alongside international currents represented at the Venice Biennale, São Paulo Art Biennial, and touring exhibitions organized by the British Council and United States Information Agency.
The circle organized solo and group shows at venues including the Salon d'Automne, Galerie Maeght, Galerie Drouant-David, municipal halls in Paris, and provincial centers in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Rennes and Nice. International loans and travel brought works to exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Neue Nationalgalerie, and galleries in Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Rome, Milan, Madrid and New York City. Contemporary critics writing for Le Figaro, Le Monde, The Times, The New York Times, Artnews and Artforum alternately praised the circle's energy or criticized perceived backwardness; polemics engaged commentators like Raymond Cogniat, Bernard Dorival, Lionel Trilling and Clement Greenberg. Important collectors acquiring works included representatives connected to institutions such as the Musée d'Orsay, Fondation Maeght, Philips Collection, Peggy Guggenheim Collection and municipal collections in Reims and Rouen.
Although the group formally dissolved in the early 1960s, its members' careers and didactic roles influenced subsequent generations associated with Tate Modern acquisitions, retrospectives at the Centre Pompidou, and pedagogical currents at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie de la Grande Chaumière. The circle's negotiation of figuration and abstraction resurfaced in movements and artists tied to Neo‑Expressionism, Lyrical Abstraction, and painters represented by galleries such as Galerie Perrotin and Gagosian Gallery. Museum retrospectives and scholarship at institutions including the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Victoria and Albert Museum, Fondation Beyeler and university programs at Sorbonne University and Columbia University have reassessed the circle's contribution within postwar networks that included exchanges with New York School painters and European contemporaries like Antoni Tàpies and Pierre Soulages. Continued market interest is reflected in auctions at houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's, and curatorial projects integrating works into narratives alongside Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.
Category:French art groups