'New Images of Man'? Remaking Art in Postwar France, 1944–1968

ended

This project is designed to address the longstanding masculinist interpretation of visual art in the decades immediately following the WWII in Europe. Since the 1950s, the aesthetics of art in this period – of rough surfaces, violence, and gestural grandeur – has been interpreted in essentially masculine terms as interrogating ‘man’. Yet women sculptors and painters were among the most important artistic innovators shaping new directions for European modern art. This project examines how women artists in this period shaped new artistic practices and artistic identities in a transformed postwar environment. By developing new multidisciplinary historical and theoretical frameworks that combine feminist, queer, and ecological approaches, it seeks to forge a new interpretation of postwar art-making that no longer perpetuates the myth of the lone male hero. The project will be undertaken under under the supervision of Elissa Mailänder, at the Sciences Po Centre for History (CHSP), whose connections, experience, and research expertise on gender, violence, and WWII, are acutely relevant. The CHSP will also offer expert interlocutors for the project including world-leading art historian on post-WWII France, Laurence Bertrand Dorléac. Since my aim is to help change widespread cultural perceptions, a key project objective is to communicate results widely. I will produce open-access research articles, an online essay, an exhibition, a major conference open to the public, and an eventual monograph. Building on current public interest in modern women artists, and my proven communication skills, most outputs will be relevant to both public and scientific audiences. The action is also designed to strengthen a range of research and transferable skills, and to reinforce the interdisciplinarity of my research. It will establish me as an international researcher and communicator of important themes in modern art and culture, enabling ongoing knowledge-exchange across the ERA.