Shirley Jaffe : an American in Paris

When she died in 2016, the American painter Shirley Jaffe left behind a rich body of abstract work, a significant part of which was donated to the French state and received by the Musée national d'art moderne in 2019. This new exhibition shows the way in which the artist had to abandon gesturality in order to bring ever greater tension to her artistic experience. The chronological layout orchestrates occasional confrontations between works from different periods. Precious studio notes written by the artist for each of her paintings are presented in the showcase along with archival material collected in the studio.