Post-World War II School of Paris

"The number, the diversity of movements and the personalities of the creating artists, not ... a school but rather a salutary anti-school." —Pierre Soulages

A center of artistic innovation in the early 20th century, Paris welcomed back a cohort of important modern artists after WWII, including Matisse, Picasso, and Giacometti. It also hosted a new generation of international artists, working in a variety of styles and together revitalizing the Paris art scene. Perhaps most closely associated with this loose, geographical community is a style of lyrical abstraction practiced by Soulages and Nicolas de Staël, as well as the newly minted "Art Brut". In this diverse artistic milieu, the Kineticism of Victor Vasarely and Jean Tinguely could be seen alongside Los Disidentes (a group of expatriate Latin American artists). A series of exhibitions in the 1950s helped to mythologize the School and cement for the public a list, however informal, of its members.