98 J.-A. PEMBERTON
de l’art indépendent).^42 Gérard Durozol points out that this exhibi-
tion, which included works by Bonnard, Braque, Delaunay, Dufy, Léger,
Maillol, Matisse and Picasso, was staged ‘despite rumbling protests at the
city council, where some claimed that these so-called “masters”...were
all foreigners, of the kind regarded in Germany as “degenerate” and
also rejected by Italy and the USSR’.^43 In fact, the curator of he exhi-
bition, Raymond Escholier, had invited foreign artists who had lived in
Paris prior to 1925 to participate in the exhibition in order to under-
score the cosmopolitan complexion of the art being produced in Paris
at the time.^44 The exhibition received reasonably positive reviews in the
press, however, there were criticisms from within certain artistic circles.
Vasily Kandinsky, who had moved from Germany to Boulogne following
the proscription of the Bauhaus by the Nazis, observed that it ‘absolutely
followed the trend of the Paris market, which does all it can to systemati-
cally leave in the shade anything and everything new.’^45 Durozol explains
that this judgement explains Kandinsky’s involvement in the planning
of a ‘complementary exhibition’ at the Jeu de Palme, entitled Origines
et développements de l’art international indépendent which, in con-
trast with the Petit Palais exhibition, included works of abstraction and
Surrealism.^46
Meanwhile, plans were underway to stage the first major retrospec-
tive of Surrealism. These plans which were realised on January 17, 1938,
with the opening of the International Exhibition of Surrealism at the
Galerie des Beaux-Arts which featured 314 works by sixty-three artists
from sixteen different countries.^47 Cullum notes that the exhibition was
(^42) Cullum, review of Paris 1937: Worlds on Exhibition, by James D. Herbert, 39, and
Durozol, ‘Painting and Sculpture,’ 283.
(^43) Durozol, ‘Painting and Sculpture,’ 267.
(^44) Ibid., 267, 283–84. See also James D. Herbert, Paris 1937: Worlds on Exhibition
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 4.
(^45) Vasily Kandinstky, n.d., quoted in Durozol, ‘Painting and Sculpture,’ 284. On
Kandinsky’s shift to France, see Durozol, ‘Painting and Sculpture,’ 266.
(^46) Durozol, ‘Painting and Sculpture,’ 267, 284. See also Ory, ‘Le Front populaire et
l’Exposition,’ in Lemoine, ed., Paris 1937: Cinquantenaire de l’Exposition internationale
des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne, 32. Ory notes that this exhibition received the
French state’s seal of approval.
(^47) Durozol, ‘Painting and Sculpture,’ 256, and Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris,
L’art en guerre: 12 octobre 2012–17 février 2013 (Paris: Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de
Paris, 2012). Exhibition brochure.