Le monument aux martyrs d'Oradour-sur-Glane par Fenosa

The Monument to the Martyrs of Oradour-sur-Glane by Fenosa, Bertrand Tillier. In 1944 while he was in Limousin, the Catalan sculptor Apel les Fenosa (1899-1988) - a republican refugee living in France since 1939 - received the commission for a monument to commemorate the destruction of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane. Exhibited in the Salon of Extra-in-dependents (des Surindépendants) in 1945, the work was generally favorably received by the critics at the same time that it was virulently refused by the Limoges religious anthorities who denonced its failure to commemorate the massacre and saw in it an insuit to the memory of the victims. Entered as part of the Paris National Museum of Modem Art collections in 1947 under the aegis of Jean Cassou, the monument was not installed in Limoges until 1981. This article attempts to analyze the various motivations that led to its eviction in the multiple post-war strata in which history, art, politics and the stakes of memory are all intertwined.Tillier Bertrand. Le monument aux martyrs d'Oradour-sur-Glane par Fenosa. In: Vingtième Siècle, revue d'histoire, n°55, juillet-septembre 1997. pp. 43-57