All the while, Hart, a senior at Vanguard, was on the other side of town in her mother's flower-shop-turned-art-studio. Hart traded one love for another, diving headfirst into a budding art career.

This week they are being shown in a Paris gallery, along with 17 other examples of “American Vanguard Art.” The U.S. has welcomed a lot of hard-to-take art from Paris, and this collection ...