Twenty-one French children's watercolour and gouache paintings from J. M. Paillard competitions.

the outbreak of wwii through the eyes of children

An incredible collection of children's paintings from the annual J. M. Paillard competitions in France, with this selection of twenty-one covering the outbreak of WWII. The rare group form a vivid child's eye view of life in France during the period 1938-43, remarkably more joyful than the realities of war.

J. M. Paillard was a renowned French manufacturer of artist materials, producing high-quality oils, watercolours and pastels. Between 1935 and 1947 they held competitions for school children to encourage them to paint. Each year a different subject or theme was chosen, and the best were chosen for an exhibition in Paris which then go on tour around France and other European countries.

In 1948, MoMA also held an exhibition of forty one entrants to the J. M. Paillard competitions. The press release for the opening states:

'The forty one watercolours in tapestry-rich colors and detail depict Paris street scenes and country landscapes, workers on farms and in cities, churches and monuments, fairs, sports, the Liberation; in short the life of France as seen by her school children'….'The Twentieth Century has been called "The Century of the Child." The child mind and its creative urge have been explored as never before. Nearly every country has recognised the advantages of encouraging children to understand and enjoy art and also to draw and paint.'

The description by MoMA of tapestry-rich colours and highly detailed work aligns with the paintings we have here in this collection. We don't know whether this collection was part of an exhibition, but it is likely they were as there is a contemporary export stamp to the verso of one of the paintings.

Victor d'Amico, the founding director of the MoMA Department of Education and curator of the exhibition said in the press release:

'Looking at these paintings by French children we find, in general, a powerful creative urge to express the essence of the thing seen, often using detail decoratively like a mosaic. These paintings reveal impulses that are fundamentally creative. They bear evidence of the child's ingenious transformation of realistic subject matter into original and personal expression. The approach is imaginative and uninhibited, they show an extraordinary sensibility not only to color but to pattern and texture as well.'

After the close of the exhibition at MoMA, the collection was circulated for a further six months to various other galleries and museums throughout the United States. Most of the paintings in this collection are from the 1938-39 theme: 'Fairs'. The other featured themes are Churches and Monuments (1939-40), Sports (1940-41), Work on the Farm (1941-42) and Characters from Fairy tale and story book characters (1942-43).

21 original watercolour and gouache paintings by French children, eighteen measuring approx. 32 x 48 cm, three measuring 31 x 24 cm, each painting with competition labels to verso complete with manuscript text providing the subject of the work, the child's name, age, school and teacher's name; there is a small area of loss to the foot of one painting, a 6 cm tear to the head of another (repaired with old adhesive tape verso), another with pin holes to the corners, occasional small tears or creases to the edges, otherwise in very good condition.