Un exil combattant

This exhibition offers a journey through the arts, history and literature, revealing how artists and intellectuals in exile during the Second World War placed their creativity in the service of a “certain French spirit” and of the values of freedom: from London to Sydney, via New York, Brazzaville, Buenos Aires, Cuba and Algiers, artists (André Masson, Wifredo Lam, Henri Matisse, Maria-Elena Vieira da Silva, Fernand Léger, Jean Hélion…), writers and poets (Joseph Kessel, Romain Gary, Georges Bernanos, Maurice Druon, Paul Éluard, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry…) all contributed to a resistance carried out through the arts and letters.

Librairie Walden is pleased to be represented in the exhibition through the loan of several works, and to have contributed the original manuscript of Paul Éluard’s poem “Liberté,” displayed alongside other emblematic manuscripts of the period: those of the “Chant des partisans” by Kessel and Druon, and of General de Gaulle’s “Appel à tous les français.”

This remarkable catalogue, which describes the entirety of the works, books and documents exhibited, presents each object with a detailed and illustrated entry.