Libération Set of 6 original watercolors and their preparato - Lot 17

Libération Set of 6 original watercolors and their preparatory tracings, 1944 Set of six original watercolors on paper, accompanied by their preparatory tracings or layers (one tracing is missing), forming a humorous series illustrating gallant scenes between young French women and African-American soldiers during the Liberation of Paris. The compositions, treated with lightness and elegance, are in the spirit of the illustrated press and press cartoons of the 1940s. Each watercolor is signed and bears a rights assignment stamp on the reverse, dated "Paris, 20-9-44", attesting to an editorial project contemporary with the events. This set represents a rare artistic, social and historical iconographic testimony to the Liberation period. Dimensions (each watercolor): 10 x 7 cm. This set of watercolors is a particularly rare and valuable iconographic record of the Liberation of Paris, not only for its immediate dating to 1944, but above all for its focus on the presence of African-American soldiers in the capital at the time of the events. Official iconography and the illustrated press of the time largely downplayed, if not erased, the representation of African-American soldiers engaged on French soil, in favor of heroic imagery more in keeping with the dominant post-war narratives. Relationships between young French women and African-American soldiers, though real and historically attested, were rarely depicted, and even more rarely treated with humor, lightness and humanity. These drawings clearly show American soldiers, identifiable by their uniforms, but more specifically African-American soldiers, engaged in gallant, everyday scenes, far from any propaganda or military idealization. This direct, almost intimate view of social interactions, which at the time were little documented visually, lends the ensemble a major historical and sociological value.