Critiques et galeries d'art, 1942-1946. Entre esprit de résistance et petits arrangements

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The Galerie de France, 1944-1946. Between Resistance and Small Acts of Compliance, by Yves Chevrefils-Desbiolles Over the past twenty years, research has demonstrated the mechanisms that ensured the prosperity of the art market during World War II : important sums of capital in search of easy investment; a black market stirred up by the fear of monetary devolution ; a surge of stolen works and reduced prices as a result of desperate Jewish collectors. Furthermore, Laurence Bertrand Dorléac's pioneering research has shown the “meager courage and cowardliness” that characterized the wait-and-see attitude in the art world during the Occupation. Taking for example the careers of art critic Gaston Diehl and art dealer Paul Martin, this article explores the manner in which certain actors of the period, neither members of the resistance nor collaborators, slipped into a complex “in-between,” created by the sudden neutralization of their Jewish colleagues.