DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna: How the West corroborated socialist realism in the East: Fougeron, Taslitzky and Picasso in Warsaw
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0324
314
Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius
making. A contemporary comment assures the reader: 'the ambition of the painter does
not dominate the ambition of the observer'.22 It is of course, 'La Tribune', the Communist
Party paper, spread under the sturdy slices of the miner's sandwich and his metal flask,
which anchors the semiotic codes and provides an interventionist appeal to the composi-
tion. The painting, signed and dated on the lower edge of the folded newspaper: 'A.
Fougeron. 50', formed part of a large project of 40 compositions entitled The Land of
Mines, a commission the painter received in 1949 from the Federation Regionale des
Mineurs du Nord et du Palais de Calais. The purpose of such a large commission was to
bring public attention to the grave social conditions of the miners' community in Northern
France, and to document a strike, violently suppressed by the police, during which three
workers were killed. The most impressive compositions of the series, the monumental
Defence Nationale, Les Juges (ill. 6) and le Pensionne, have often been reproduced in
various publications on Fougeron and the art of the French Left. The series as a whole,
displayed with dazzling success in Paris's Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in 1951, was recorded
in a catalogue Les Pays des Mines, edited by the miners' union, 1951 and featuring a
preface written by Andre Stil.23 The painting in the Warsaw repository is one of the several
variations on the topie of the Miner's still life.24
By the time Fougeron received this large commission, he had already acquired the
position of 'leading artist' for the French Communist Party, and was said to have risen to
the challenge of becoming TAragon de la peinture' ?5 Indeed, he had been forcefully
promoted by Louis Aragon himself, from the time of the scandal caused by his painting,
Femmes parisiennes au marche at the 1948 Salon d'Automne. By mimicking the Italian
Grand Manner and by the deployment of primary colours and modernist flatness to repre-
sent the poverty of life in the marshallised city, Fougeron is said to have 'ignited la
Bataille Realisme-Abstraction' in post-war Paris.26 His subsequent compositions, such as
a fresco-like Hommage a Andre Houllier (1949), presented to Stalin as a gift on his 70th
birthday, and today on display at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow,27 were treated as the
most accomplished visual manifestos of politically engaged art in French socialist real-
ism. Despite his leading role, the huge canvas of 1953 by Fougeron titled Civilisation
Atlantique, 'the ultimate cold war history painting', intended to illustrate the disasters of
American imperialism and its influence in France, was ridiculed mercilessly by the al-
ready disheartened Aragon,28 who by then was careful to distance himself from the blatant
representational regimes and from the naivety of the word-for-word translation of political
manifesto into the language of painting. Fougeron's art from the socialist realist period,
22 R. STANISŁAWSKI, Nowe drogi malarstwa francuskiego, 'Przegląd Artystyczny', 1952, 3, p. 68.
23 J. MILHAU, Les pays de Mines, 'Arts de France', 1951, January, pp. 5-15; A. LECOEUR, A. STIL, Les Pays des
Mines d' Andre Fougeron, Paris 1953. On Andre Fougeron, refer back to: note 19. I would like to thank Maryvonne
Gilles for her help and for sending me books and the latest articles on the artist.
24 There are at least four other versions of the miner's still-life: a still-life with 3 lamps, hat and a bottle reproduced by
MILHAU, Les pays de Mines, op. cit. ; 'La Tribune', [repr. in:] LECOEUR & STIL, Les pays de mines ..., op. cit., pl.
2, Les Lampes [Leipzig] and Nature-morte a la lampe tempete [Pushkin Museum, Moscow]; on the topie, see also:
PERROT, Esthetique de Fougeron, op. cit., pp. 128-30, notes 8-10.
25 WILSON, '"La Beaute Revolutionnaire"...', op. cit., p. 65.
26 GUILBAULT, Postwar Painting Games..., op. cit., p. 44.
27 The latter was given to Stalin on his 70th birthday in 1949, and today is to be found in the storage of the Pushkin
Museum in Moscow (WILSON, ' "La Beaute Revolutionnaire"...', op. cit., p. 64; WILSON, Art and the Politics of the
Left in France, op. cit., pp. 306-8).
28 Ibid., pp. 380-6.
Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius
making. A contemporary comment assures the reader: 'the ambition of the painter does
not dominate the ambition of the observer'.22 It is of course, 'La Tribune', the Communist
Party paper, spread under the sturdy slices of the miner's sandwich and his metal flask,
which anchors the semiotic codes and provides an interventionist appeal to the composi-
tion. The painting, signed and dated on the lower edge of the folded newspaper: 'A.
Fougeron. 50', formed part of a large project of 40 compositions entitled The Land of
Mines, a commission the painter received in 1949 from the Federation Regionale des
Mineurs du Nord et du Palais de Calais. The purpose of such a large commission was to
bring public attention to the grave social conditions of the miners' community in Northern
France, and to document a strike, violently suppressed by the police, during which three
workers were killed. The most impressive compositions of the series, the monumental
Defence Nationale, Les Juges (ill. 6) and le Pensionne, have often been reproduced in
various publications on Fougeron and the art of the French Left. The series as a whole,
displayed with dazzling success in Paris's Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in 1951, was recorded
in a catalogue Les Pays des Mines, edited by the miners' union, 1951 and featuring a
preface written by Andre Stil.23 The painting in the Warsaw repository is one of the several
variations on the topie of the Miner's still life.24
By the time Fougeron received this large commission, he had already acquired the
position of 'leading artist' for the French Communist Party, and was said to have risen to
the challenge of becoming TAragon de la peinture' ?5 Indeed, he had been forcefully
promoted by Louis Aragon himself, from the time of the scandal caused by his painting,
Femmes parisiennes au marche at the 1948 Salon d'Automne. By mimicking the Italian
Grand Manner and by the deployment of primary colours and modernist flatness to repre-
sent the poverty of life in the marshallised city, Fougeron is said to have 'ignited la
Bataille Realisme-Abstraction' in post-war Paris.26 His subsequent compositions, such as
a fresco-like Hommage a Andre Houllier (1949), presented to Stalin as a gift on his 70th
birthday, and today on display at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow,27 were treated as the
most accomplished visual manifestos of politically engaged art in French socialist real-
ism. Despite his leading role, the huge canvas of 1953 by Fougeron titled Civilisation
Atlantique, 'the ultimate cold war history painting', intended to illustrate the disasters of
American imperialism and its influence in France, was ridiculed mercilessly by the al-
ready disheartened Aragon,28 who by then was careful to distance himself from the blatant
representational regimes and from the naivety of the word-for-word translation of political
manifesto into the language of painting. Fougeron's art from the socialist realist period,
22 R. STANISŁAWSKI, Nowe drogi malarstwa francuskiego, 'Przegląd Artystyczny', 1952, 3, p. 68.
23 J. MILHAU, Les pays de Mines, 'Arts de France', 1951, January, pp. 5-15; A. LECOEUR, A. STIL, Les Pays des
Mines d' Andre Fougeron, Paris 1953. On Andre Fougeron, refer back to: note 19. I would like to thank Maryvonne
Gilles for her help and for sending me books and the latest articles on the artist.
24 There are at least four other versions of the miner's still-life: a still-life with 3 lamps, hat and a bottle reproduced by
MILHAU, Les pays de Mines, op. cit. ; 'La Tribune', [repr. in:] LECOEUR & STIL, Les pays de mines ..., op. cit., pl.
2, Les Lampes [Leipzig] and Nature-morte a la lampe tempete [Pushkin Museum, Moscow]; on the topie, see also:
PERROT, Esthetique de Fougeron, op. cit., pp. 128-30, notes 8-10.
25 WILSON, '"La Beaute Revolutionnaire"...', op. cit., p. 65.
26 GUILBAULT, Postwar Painting Games..., op. cit., p. 44.
27 The latter was given to Stalin on his 70th birthday in 1949, and today is to be found in the storage of the Pushkin
Museum in Moscow (WILSON, ' "La Beaute Revolutionnaire"...', op. cit., p. 64; WILSON, Art and the Politics of the
Left in France, op. cit., pp. 306-8).
28 Ibid., pp. 380-6.