Abstract
The 1993 exhibition at the Tate Gallery, ‘Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism 1945–55’, focused attention on eleven artists working in the French capital in the aftermath of the Liberation.1 The primary thrust of the exhibition was accordingly to place the sculpture and painting of Giacometti, Dubuffet, Picasso, Richier, Hélion, Gruber, Van Velde, Michaux, Fautrier, Artaud and Wols within the effervescent ideological and artistic context of the time. Given that Alberto Giacometti was perceived by many to be ‘the central figure of the exhibition’,2 the aim of the following analysis is to explore the links between Giacometti, existentialism and Sartre using the Paris Post War exhibition as a convenient point of entry into the debate.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
‘Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism 1945–55’, Tate Gallery, London, 9 June–5 September 1993. The catalogue of the exhibition, F. Morris, Paris Post War: Art and Existentialism 1945–55 (London: Tate Gallery, 1993), contains two extensively documented contextualising essays: (i) S. Wilson, ‘Paris Post War; In Search of the Absolute’, pp. 25–52; (ii) D. Mellor, ‘Existentialism and Post War British Art’, pp. 53–62. A version of this chapter on Sartre and Giacometti was originally delivered as a lecture at the Tate Gallery on 10 July 1993 as a contribution to the educational events linked to the exhibition.
D. Sylvester, ‘In Giacometti’s Studio’, Independent, 10 July 1993, p. 29. For a broader assessment of the exhibition, see C. Howells, ‘A new resolve: Art and existentialism in the wake of the Second World War’, The Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 1993, pp. 18–19.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘La Recherche de l’absolu’, Les Temps Modernes, no. 28 (January 1948), pp. 1153–63; reprinted in SIT3, pp. 289–305. The text, translated as ‘The Search for the Absolute’, constituted the introducton to the catalogue of an exhibition of Giacometti’s sculptures at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, 10 January–14 February 1948.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Les Peintures de Giacometti’, Derrière le miroir (Review of the Maeght Gallery), no. 65 (May 1954); reprinted in Les Temps Modernes, no. 103 (June 1954), pp. 2221–32 and in SIT4, pp. 347–63. The text constituted the introduction to the catalogue of an exhibition of Giacometti’s paintings at the Maeght Gallery, 14 May–15 June 1954.
Wols en personne, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henri-Pierre Roche and Werner Hauftmann (Delpire, 1962); the text by Sartre was reprinted as ‘Doigts et non-doigts’, in SIT4, pp. 408–34.
SIT2, p. 63; SIT4, p. 368.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Mythe et réalité du théâtre’, Le Point, no. 7 (January 1967), pp. 20–5.
‘Paris Post War: Matter and Memory’, conference held at the Tate Gallery, 18 June 1993. Speakers were: Tim Mathews (‘Fautrier: Image and Body’), Sarah Wilson (‘Sartre and Art: From Surrealism to Existentialism’), Raymond Mason (‘School of Paris’), Alphons Grieder (‘Visions of Man: Phenomenological, Existential and Giacomettian’), Michael Kelly (‘Deaths and Entrances: Ideas and Ideology in Post War France’), Elsa Adamowicz (‘Michaux: Making Faces’), Patrick Marsh (‘Resnais: Film and Memory’), and Michel Oriano, William Turnbull, Olivier Todd, Bryan Robertson (‘Round Table Discussion’).
Sarah Wilson, ‘Sartre and Art’, n. 8.
Ibid.
Raymond Mason, ‘School of Paris’, n. 8.
Alphons Grieder, ‘Visions of Man’, n. 8.
Olivier Todd; n. 8.
J. Cau, in M. Contat and J. Lecarme, ‘Les Années Sartre’, radio programme broadcast on France Culture, 24 and 25 August 1990.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Réponse à Albert Camus’, Les Temps Modernes, no. 82 (August 1952), pp. 334–53; reprinted in SIT4, pp. 90–129.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘La Réponse de Jean-Paul Sartre au CNE’, Les Temps Modernes, no. 22 (July 1947), pp. 181–4.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘M. François Mauriac et la liberté’, La Nouvelle Revue Française, no. 305 (February 1939), pp. 212–32; reprinted in SIT1, pp. 35–52.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Les Bastilles de Raymond Aron’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 19–25 June 1968; reprinted in SIT8, pp. 193–207.
The emergence of existentialism as the ‘cultural glue’ of postwar intellectual practice was assessed in detail by Michael Kelly at the Tate Gallery conference; see n. 8. See also M. Kelly, ‘Humanism and National Unity: the Ideological Reconstruction of France’, in N. Hewitt (ed.), The Culture of Reconstruction: European Literaure, Thought and Film, 1945–50 (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 103–19.
R. Barthes, ‘Qu’est-ce que la critique?’, in Essais critiques (Seuil, 1964), pp. 252–7.
For an account of this process of ideological criticism in Sartre’s work, see M. Scriven, Sartre’s Existential Biographies (London: Macmillan, 1984).
J.-P. Sartre, Saint Genet, comédien et martyr (Gallimard, 1952). Genet himself wrote a perceptive analysis of Giacometti’s work: ‘L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti’, Les Lettres Nouvelles, vol. 5, no. 52. (September 1957), pp. 199–218; reprinted in Jean Genet Oeuvres Complètes (Gallimard, 1979), pp. 39–73.
For a comprehensive account of Sartre’s approach to the visual arts, see (i) G. Bauer, Sartre and the Artist (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969); (ii) M. Sicard, ‘Esthétique de Sartre’, Obliques Sartre et les Arts (1981), pp. 15–20.
J.-P. Sartre and M. Sicard, ‘Penser l’art: entretien’, Obliques Sartre et les Arts (1981), pp. 15–20.
J.-P. Sartre, La Nausée (Gallimard, 1938), pp. 120, 129 and 135–6. It is worth comparing the Bouville museum incident in La Nausée with the short piece that Sartre wrote entited ‘Portraits officiels’, Verve, nos 5–6 (1939), pp. 9–12; reprinted in ES, pp. 557–9.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Le séquestré de Venise’, Les Temps Modernes, no. 141 (November 1957), pp. 761–800, reprinted in SIT4, pp. 291–346; J.-P. Sartre, ‘Saint Georges et le dragon’, L’Arc, no. 30 (October 1966), pp. 35–50, reprinted in SIT9, pp. 202–26; J.-P. Sartre, ‘Saint Marc et son double’, Obliques: Sartre et les Arts (1981), pp. 171–202.
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Visages’, Verve, nos 5–6, pp. 43–4; reprinted in ES, pp. 560–4.
J.-P. Sartre, Visages, précédé de Portraits officiels (Seghers, 1948).
J.-P. Sartre, ‘Visages’, p. 564.
Ibid., p. 560.
J.-P. Sartre, Les Mots (Gallimard, 1964), p. 193.
S. de Beauvoir, La Force de l’âge (Gallimard, 1960), p. 561.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 561–2.
J.-P. Sartre, Les Mots (Gallimard, 1964), pp. 193–4.
Ibid., pp. 194–5.
S. de Beauvoir, Tout compte fait (Gallimard, 1972), p. 102.
SIT3, pp. 292–3.
Ibid., p. 294.
J.-P. Sartre, L’Imaginaire (Gallimard, 1940).
S. de Beauvoir, Tout compte fait (Gallimard, 1972), p. 103.
‘Rétrospective Alberto Giacometti’, exhibition held at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, 30 November 1991–15 March 1992.
J.-P. Sartre and M. Sicard, ‘Penser l’art: entretien’, Obliques Sartre et les Arts (1981), p. 16.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1999 Michael Scriven
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Scriven, M. (1999). Ideological Art Criticism: Sartre and Giacometti. In: Jean-Paul Sartre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27564-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27564-9_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-27566-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-27564-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)