Jean-Paul SartreSimone de Beauvoir1938 Paris

European Postwar Existentialism

1949 – a foundingfeminist text rooted in Existentialism’s questionsabout the nature of Being. “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.” (De Beauvoir)

1943

Jean Fautrier (French, 1898-1964) Art Informel, tachisme, Head of a Hostage, 20," oïl on panel, 1944, one of over thirty “hostage” paintings and sculptures made during the occupation of Paris that allude to the Nazi atrocities Fautrier is said to have witnessed there.

“These paintings addressed the most important issue of their time, epitomizing a 'new human resolve' against the horrors of war."

- Jean Fautrier

Jean Fautrier, Large Tragic Head, bronze, 15 in. high1943, Tate MA, London

Jean Fautrier, Nude, 1960, oil on canvas, tachism, 35 in. x 57 1/2 in.

Germaine Richier (French, 1904-1959) Crucified Christ, 1950, Notre-Dame de Tour Grâce d'Assy, France. Post-humanist? (below right) Compare Richier’s teacher, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Hercules, 1909. What became of the heroic human body in Western art in the hands of the WWII generation? Why?

Germaine Richier, (left) The Shepherd of Landes, c. 5 ft high, bronze, 1951 (cast 1996), Tate Modern, London; (right) Le Griffu, 1952, bronze, c. 39 in high

Shepherd’s head is cast from a piece of eroded building rubble that Richier found

on the beach.

Germaine Richier, Praying Mantis, 1949, bronze, 47” height, Middelheim Sculpture Museum, Antwerp

Germaine Richier in her studio, 1951 / Gordon Parks, photograph (for Life magazine)

“Life does not always belong to serene things.” (G. Richier)

Alberto Giacometti (Swiss, 1901-1966), (left) City Square, 1948, bronze, c. 8 x 25 x 17“(right) Giacometti, Portrait of a Seated Man (Diego), 1949, oil on canvas, 80 x 64 cm.

2 of 5 casts. Guggenheim collection photos. Lower one is artist’s preferred viewpoint (eye-level, close up), which alters the viewer’s perception of scale

Portraits are the stopping point of an agonized struggle with

perception as proof of existence

Giacometti, The Palace at 4 a.m., 1932, construction in wood, glass, wire, and string, 25 x 28 x 15 in. Prewar Surrealist work

Artist’s sketch, 1932

Giacometti, Woman with Her Throat Cut, bronze, 1932, prewar Surrealist work drawing from the artist’s dreams and imaginings

MoMA New York, 2005

(left) Poseidon, Greek, c. 575 BC, bronze, found in the Aegean Sea in 1926: gods as men. The classical Poseidon was a source for Giacometti.(right) Giacometti, Man Pointing, 1947, bronze, 70 inches high, Existential man: “thrown naked into the void” (Heidegger, German WWII-era existential philosopher).

Sacramento’s Poseidon

February 3, 2010, Striding Man I, bronze, 72” high, (1961, 2nd of six numbered editions plus four artist

proofs) by Alberto Giacometti sold for $104,327,006: the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction.

Jean Dubuffet [French, 1901-1985] “Art Brut,” Large Sooty Nude, 1944, o/c, 64”H; (right) Tree of Fluids, 1952; compare (center) Willem de Kooning,

Woman I, 1952“Art addresses the mind, not the eyes.” (Dubuffet)

Jean Dubuffet, Fleshy Face with Chestnut Hair, 1951, Oil & mixed-media, 28”H, Art Brut. Compare the head of the Apollo Belvedere (Roman copy of

Greek original c. 350 BC) and Jean Fautrier’s 1944 Hostage

Brassai, (Gyula Halasz, French b. Romania, 1899 - 1987)(left) Swastika Graffiti; (right) Passion Graffiti, both Paris, 1939

Henry Moore (English 1896-1986),Tube Shelter Perspective, 1941, ink, pen, wax, and watercolor, 8 1/2 x 6 1/2 in., one of many such drawings Moore made during WWII.

Henry Moore

King and Queen

1952bronze

Henry Moore, working model for Reclining Figure for Lincoln Center, New York, 1963-65, plaster

Henry MooreReclining Figure for Lincoln Center1963-65bronze

Barbara Hepworth (English, 1903-1975) Pendour, plane wood with color, 1947, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.Chttp://www.barbarahepworth.org.uk/sculptures/1933/two-forms-2/

Barbara Hepworth carving Pendour at Chy-an-Kerris, Carbis Bay, 1947

Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, oil and pastel on canvas, triptych on wood fiberboard, each 37 x 29 inches. The crucifixion was for Bacon a symbol of humanity’s sadism. (right) Picasso, On the Beach (La Baignade) 1937. Picasso was a crucial source and encouraged Bacon.

Francis Bacon (British, 1909 -1992), (left) Painting, 1946, oil and pastel on

linen, 6' 6" x 52”, MoMA, NYC

The black umbrella was the symbol of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and his policy of Nazi appeasement before WWII. “An attempt to remake the violence of reality itself” (Bacon)

Francis Bacon, Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 5 x 4 ft, 1953; (right top) source: Velazquez, Pope Innocent X, 1650; (right below) a still from Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 film, The Battleship Potemkin, Odessa steps sequence

Francis Bacon, Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef (Study after Velasquez), 4’3” x 4’, oil on canvas, 1954, Art Institute Chicago

(left) Francis Bacon, Three Studies of figures on Beds, 1972, oil and pastel on canvas, triptych, each panel 6’6” x 4’ 10”(right) source: Eadweard Muybridge, photograph from The Human Figure in Motion, 1887

Sotheby’s May 14, 2008, a 1976 Francis Bacon Triptych sells for $86,281,000