French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975

For over a century, the idea of primitivism has motivated artistic modernism. Focusing on the three decades after World War II, known in France as “les trentes glorieuses� despite the loss of most of the country’s colonial empire, this probing and expansive book argues that primitivism played a key role in a French society marked by both economic growth and political turmoil. In a series of chapters that consider significant aspects of French culture-including the creation of new museums of French folklore and of African and Oceanic arts and the development of tourism against the backdrop of nuclear testing in French Polynesia-Daniel J. Sherman shows how primitivism, a collective fantasy born of the colonial encounter, proved adaptable to a postcolonial, inward-looking age of mass consumption. Following the likes of Claude L vi-Strauss, Andr e Putman, and Jean Dubuffet through decorating magazines, museum galleries, and Tahiti’s pristine lagoons, this interdisciplinary study provides a new perspective on primitivism as a cultural phenomenon and offers fresh insights into the eccentric edges of contemporary French history.