Artists in Exile

The Artists in Exile exhibition was a seminal art show held from March 3 to 28, 1942, at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City.^[1] This exhibition featured fourteen prominent European artists who had fled the turmoil of World War II and sought refuge in the United States. Organized by gallery owner Pierre Matisse, son of the renowned French painter Henri Matisse, the exhibition symbolized artistic resilience and showcased how displacement impacted the creative processes of these eminent figures.

Background

The outbreak of World War II and the subsequent occupation of much of Europe by Nazi forces led to the persecution of many artists, particularly those associated with modernist movements like Surrealism and Cubism, which were condemned as "degenerate art" by the Nazi regime.^[2] Facing persecution, many artists sought refuge in the United States, with New York City becoming a significant sanctuary for these émigrés.^[2] The influx of European artists during this period played a crucial role in transforming New York into a new center for modern art.^[3]

Participants

Pierre Matisse, recognizing the importance of providing a platform for these displaced artists, organized the Artists in Exile exhibition at his gallery located in the Fuller Building at 41 East 57th Street. Each of the fourteen participating artists contributed a single work created after their arrival in the United States, highlighting their continued creativity despite the upheavals they had faced. The artists featured in the exhibition were (in alphabetical order):^[4][5]

• Amédée Ozenfant
• André Breton
• André Masson
• Eugene Berman
• Fernand Léger
• Jacques Lipchitz
• Kurt Seligmann
• Marc Chagall
• Max Ernst
• Ossip Zadkine
• Pavel Tchelitchew
• Piet Mondrian^[6]
• Roberto Matta
• Yves Tanguy^[7]

These artists represented a diverse array of styles and movements,^[8] including Surrealism, Cubism, and De Stijl.

Group photo

A group photograph taken of the artists at the event (not pictured here for licensing reasons), taken by George Platt Lynes, has become famous.^[9][10] According to historian Richard D. Sonn, the photo "underscores that Paris had lost its place as the center of cosmopolitanism, in the arts and in general".^[11]

Significance and legacy

According to Sarah Hayden, the exhibition's catalog, written by James Thrall Soby, "heralded the advent of a new internationalism in American art".^[2] According to Hayden, the exhibition was used as illustration of a widely promulgated narrative, according to which the USA is a safe haven for the Old World's cultural heritage—a narrative which was used by Harry S. Truman to argue for isolationism.^[2] American Mercury headlined its review of the show "Hitler's Gift to America", emphasizing how the Nazis had driven the artists' great talent out of Germany.^[12][13]

The exhibition was important because it let the public know that surrealist artists had arrived in New York, according to Heilbut^[14] and Nixon and Bourgeois.^[15] Out of the participants, these were surrealists: Eugene Berman, André Breton, Max Ernst, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Pavel Tchelitchew, and Fernand Léger.^[16] Peter Watson claims that the exhibition "introduced Americans to the work of important European artists", and "had a big impact on American artists".^[10] According to Richard Pells, the show "intensified the desire of American artists to create works at least equal to those of the Europeans in their midst".^[17]