Olivier Debré aux États-Unis, 1959-1963 : échec d’une réception

Éric de Chassey : Olivier Debré in the USA, 1959-1963 : A Failed Reception. The history of the artistic relationships between Paris and New York in the nineteen-fifties has usually been viewed as though it were a territorial feud, biased by the power of the Americans or by the tradition of the French. This article summarizes the reasons why Olivier Debré, a French painter, distinguished by European critics for his supposed «american-ness », failed to be accepted by the American art world, after his works were introduced on the New York and Washington art markets, in 1959 and 1963. Placed in the context of the end of Abstract Expressionism and the failure of Abstract Impressionism to impose itself as a valid successor, the paintings of Debré seemed outdated. In fact, his art addressed several issues that had been resolved by the New York School ten years before and numerous formal strategies that had been discarded in the USA as trop français and old-fashioned. For the American art scene of the fifties, it was neither formalist enough, which would have placed it in the « post-painterly » trend, nor was its subject matter momentous enough. The negative reception that Debré ’s work received in the United States is significant in that it reflects an environment in which two different art scenes co-existed and, yet, were not truly contemporary — an environment that elicits further research.