Jean Cassou

Jean Cassou (1897–1986) was a French writer, poet, essayist, art critic, and museum curator. In 1945 he became the first director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, a position he held until 1965. Through his curatorial work and writings on abstraction, livre d’artiste, and Maeght publishing, he played an important role in shaping the intellectual and institutional context of modern art in postwar France and moved within the broader orbit of non-figurative art circles, including those connected with the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles.

During his tenure he strengthened the museum’s ties with leading modern artists and expanded its modern collections. In 1951 Cassou presided over Les Peintres Témoins de leur Temps, thematically structuring exhibitions responding to contemporary life. In 1953, Cassou organized the exhibition 12 Peintres et Sculpteurs Américains Contemporains at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, one of the earliest institutional presentations of American modern and contemporary art in postwar France. The exhibition signaled a shift in curatorial emphasis by introducing French audiences to artists whose work challenged the aesthetic dominance long associated with the School of Paris.