ART-TRIBUTE:American Icons at Grand Palais,Paris

The exhibition, presents 49 emblematic works taken from one of the world’s largest collections of art from the second half of the twentieth century. It is historic on two counts: it is the first presentation of works from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the collection of Donald and Doris Fisher brought together by an exceptional partnership developed over many years, and it prefigures the major expansion project at the SFMOMA.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Grand Palais Archive

The SFMOMA has established an historic partnership with the Fisher family to share this extraordinary collection with the San Francisco public. The Fishers’ works will be exhibited alongside works from the SFMOMA collection in the museum’s new expansion. Although the two collections are not exhaustive, they are both remarkable in their decision to concentrate on certain artists of whom they own a considerable number of works. Both collections include American and European artists who began their careers in the 1960s and 1970s, many of them are still active today. Bringing the two collections together had a complementary effect for many of these artists and some now consider that their work is better represented in this ensemble than in any other museum or public collection in the world. The Grand Palais will host the greatest 20th-century American artists especially from the post-war period: Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Richard Diebenkorn, Chuck Close and many more. The names are impressive, but the quality of the works on display is no less outstanding: Warhol’s Red Liz, Lichtenstein’s Tire, portraits by Chuck Close…The richness and density of the collection make American Icons: Masterworks from the SFMOMA and the Fisher Collection a very complete exhibition. It presents an outstanding collection, but is above all an opportunity to set up a dialogue between works that have never been brought together before and the French public. The selection focuses on the paintings and sculptures of fourteen American artists, some of whom, better promoted in the United States than in France, are particularly well represented. Most belong to the generation of painters who followed Abstract Expressionism and navigated between abstraction and representation to reach a new understanding of the use of colour, formalism and figurative painting. Participating Artists: Carl Andre, Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Dan Flavin, Philip Guston, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWit, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol.

Info: ‘’American Icons’’: Masterworks from the San Francisco Museum of Modern, Curating: Gary Garrels & Laurent Salomé, Grand Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, Paris, Duration: 8/4-22/6/15, Days & Hours: Fri-Wed: 10:00-20:00, www.grandpalais.fr