With this series, KEY ART WORKS, we are proposing a new approach to art. In an analysis of twelve successive paintings, we will try to follow and understand the development of painting as it is represented in a museum.The fifth volume in this collection, Modern Art at the MNAM (Musee National d'Art Moderne) - Georges Pompidou Centre, guides the reader, in twelve selected paintings, through one of the richest collections of modern art in the world, twelve paintings selected to bear witness, through precise examples,to the most important preoccupations of the painters of this century.

Paintings made from bits of string and a frame, a stretch of blue floating in front of a wall, lines at right angles which connect simple rectangles of color... The art of the twentieth century will continue to raise questions and to disconcert us for a long time to come.

In answer to some of these questions, Modem Art, in the collection "Key Art Works", proposes a tour in twelve paintings of one of the richest collections of modern art in the world; twelve paintings chosen to demonstrate,through specific examples, some of the central concerns of the artists of this century.

One hundred and fifty illustrations, paintings, sculptures,photographs, from the National Museum of Modern Art or elsewhere, enable us to better understand the art of the twentieth century, and to join in some of its adventures.

To the reader

The Georges Pompidou Centre - The history of a museum

The 20th century and its art

Colour, colour everywhere

Matisse, Interior with Goldfish

Kandinsky, With the Black Arc

Klein, Blue Monochrome

The new outlines of form

Picasso, Woman Seated in an Armchair

Russolo, The Power of an Automobile

Mondrian, Composition II

The work of art and the object

Picabia, Tabac-Rat

Painting as materials

 Pollock, Number 26 A, Black and White

 Dubuffet, The Traveller without a Compass

Painting and the Image

 Magritte, The Red Model

 Warhol, Ten Lizzes

Step-by-step analysis

 Fernand Leger, Adieu, New York

Biographical Notes

Chronology

Movements, schools, and tendencies

Glossary