| At the outbreak of World War I, modern art was an institutionally marginal form; since the end of World War II, it has achieved a position of near-global institutional dominance. This dissertation examines French cultural policy between the wars in order to extend our understanding of the process by which modern art moved from a marginal to a dominant position. I argue that the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression, was crucial in this respect. During the 1920s the French State took only isolated measures to extend its support to modern artists. Those measures were met with limited enthusiasm by modern artists, long accustomed to define themselves as independent from state institutions. During the 1930s four main factors combined to erode this mutual suspicion between modern artists and the State. The collapse of the market for modern art, sparked by the Depression, undermined artists' faith in the market, which they had previously seen as the mechanism that liberated them from dependence on state support. Low prices on the market increased the relative value of the funds the State had to spend on art acquisitions, allowing it to become a significant purchaser of modern art for the first time. Left-wing coalitions governed twice during the decade (1932-34 and 1936-38). Though both were short-lived, they improved relations between the State and modern artists, since the majority of these had leftist sympathies, and were disposed to expect more respectful treatment from a left-wing than a right-wing government. Finally, the international dimension of cultural policy grew in importance as the arts were politicized to a previously unseen extent in the totalitarian states. Most significantly, the connection between totalitarian government and traditional artistic form that became apparent in the second half of the 1930s served to break down the long-standing assumption that modern art was inherently at odds with democratic government. By 1939, modern art was beginning to be equated with democracy; the strengthening of this link during World War II and the Cold War was the necessary precondition for the institutional triumph of modern art in the West from the 1950s onwards. |
