German Expressionism was first presented in France’s most important museum of modern art, the Musée national d’art moderne in Paris, starting in the 1960s, more than fifty years after its emergence. In light of the numerous contacts between German artists and the art scene in Paris at the start of the twentieth century, this is surprising. Based on source material on four special exhibitions in Paris between 1960 and 1978 that presented Expressionist works from Germany, the author analyzes an eventful German-French history of perception that was shaped for a long time, until into the 1970s, by national and nationalistic discourses.

Written from a bilateral German-French perspective, the book makes an important contribution to the writing of art history from a transnational perspective.