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School of Paris
The School of Paris (French: École de Paris, pronounced [ekɔl də paʁi]) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. Never a single art movement or institution, the term "School of Paris" refers instead to the primacy of Paris as the centre of Western art between 1900 and 1940.
Artists of Jewish origin always figured prominently in the School of Paris. Before 1917, Jews faced restrictions in mobility within the Pale of Settlement and strict quotas or outright bans from studying art in the Russian Empire's most illustrious art schools in St. Petersburg and Moscow. So many got their start in Odesa, Vilnius, Kyiv, and Munich before moving to Paris for reasons that included artistic ambition, a desire to escape the pogroms of the Russian Empire, and the hope that the exoneration of Dreyfus in 1906 was "a sign that eventually the state would in fact side with justice and inclusion." In the 1930s and 1940s, many of these artists immigrated to the United States and Israel where they went on to heavily influence modern art.
Art critic André Warnod first coined École de Paris to describe the mainly Jewish group of immigrant artists that included Jules Pascin, Yitzhak Frenkel, Chaïm Soutine, Marc Chagall and others in 1925. But it was always an elastic classification, encompassing a loose community, particularly of non-French artists, centred in the cafes, salons and shared workspaces and galleries of Montparnasse. Before World War I, it was also applied to artists involved in the many collaborations and overlapping new art movements, between Post-Impressionists and Pointillism and Orphism, Fauvism and Cubism in the well-established art scene in Montmartre.
In its broader sense, the group included artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, and Piet Mondrian, and associated French artists, such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, and Albert Gleizes. In its more narrow sense, it described Chagall and Modigliani as prominent members of the early school, and Picasso and Matisse as its twin pre-war leaders (chefs d'école). By the 1920s, Montparnasse had become a centre of the avant-garde, so the name was also used to refer to that group. After World War II, the name was also applied to a group of abstract artists and a group of émigré classical composers.
Many École de Paris artists lived in the iconic La Ruche, a complex of studio apartments and other facilities in Montparnasse on the Left Bank, at 2 Passage Dantzig, built by a successful sculptor, Alfred Boucher, who wanted to develop a creative hub where struggling artists could live, work and interact. Built from materials dismantled from the Medoc Wine Pavilion from the 1900 Paris World's Fair, it comprised 50 modest studios with large windows that let in a lot of light, with nearby buildings providing 50 more studios for the overflow of artists. Boucher called the complex La Ruche — French for "beehive" — because he wanted the artists to work like bees in a beehive; he dedicated a large room in the complex where the poorer artists could draw a model that he paid for, and included a small theatre space for plays and concerts.
La Ruche opened in 1902, with the blessing of the French government. It was often the first destination of émigré artists who arrived in Paris eager to join the art scene and find affordable housing. Living and working in close quarters, many artists forged lasting friendships, e.g., Chaïm Soutine with Modigliani, Chagall and poet Blaise Cendrars, and influenced each other's work. Artists who lived and worked in La Ruche include Amedeo Modigliani, Yitzhak Frenkel, Diego Rivera, Tsuguharu Foujita, Jacob, Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Moïse Kisling, Pinchus Krémègne, Ossip Zadkine, Jules Pascin, Marc Chagall, Amshey Nurenberg, Jacques Lipchitz, and more.
The term "School of Paris," which André Warnod had used innocently to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris, soon gained currency, often as a derogatory label by critics who saw the foreign artists — many of whom were Jewish — as a threat to the purity of French art. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles, noted for coining the terms "Fauvism" and "Cubism" (also meant disparagingly), called immigrant artists unwashed "Slavs disguised as representatives of French art". Waldemar George, himself a French Jew, in 1931 lamented that the term "allows any artist to pretend he is French ... it refers to French tradition but instead annihilates it."
School of Paris artists were progressively marginalised. Beginning in 1935, articles about Chagall no longer appeared in art publications (apart from those published for Jewish audiences) and, by June 1940, when the Vichy government took power, School of Paris artists could no longer exhibit in Paris at all.
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School of Paris
The School of Paris (French: École de Paris, pronounced [ekɔl də paʁi]) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. Never a single art movement or institution, the term "School of Paris" refers instead to the primacy of Paris as the centre of Western art between 1900 and 1940.
Artists of Jewish origin always figured prominently in the School of Paris. Before 1917, Jews faced restrictions in mobility within the Pale of Settlement and strict quotas or outright bans from studying art in the Russian Empire's most illustrious art schools in St. Petersburg and Moscow. So many got their start in Odesa, Vilnius, Kyiv, and Munich before moving to Paris for reasons that included artistic ambition, a desire to escape the pogroms of the Russian Empire, and the hope that the exoneration of Dreyfus in 1906 was "a sign that eventually the state would in fact side with justice and inclusion." In the 1930s and 1940s, many of these artists immigrated to the United States and Israel where they went on to heavily influence modern art.
Art critic André Warnod first coined École de Paris to describe the mainly Jewish group of immigrant artists that included Jules Pascin, Yitzhak Frenkel, Chaïm Soutine, Marc Chagall and others in 1925. But it was always an elastic classification, encompassing a loose community, particularly of non-French artists, centred in the cafes, salons and shared workspaces and galleries of Montparnasse. Before World War I, it was also applied to artists involved in the many collaborations and overlapping new art movements, between Post-Impressionists and Pointillism and Orphism, Fauvism and Cubism in the well-established art scene in Montmartre.
In its broader sense, the group included artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, and Piet Mondrian, and associated French artists, such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, and Albert Gleizes. In its more narrow sense, it described Chagall and Modigliani as prominent members of the early school, and Picasso and Matisse as its twin pre-war leaders (chefs d'école). By the 1920s, Montparnasse had become a centre of the avant-garde, so the name was also used to refer to that group. After World War II, the name was also applied to a group of abstract artists and a group of émigré classical composers.
Many École de Paris artists lived in the iconic La Ruche, a complex of studio apartments and other facilities in Montparnasse on the Left Bank, at 2 Passage Dantzig, built by a successful sculptor, Alfred Boucher, who wanted to develop a creative hub where struggling artists could live, work and interact. Built from materials dismantled from the Medoc Wine Pavilion from the 1900 Paris World's Fair, it comprised 50 modest studios with large windows that let in a lot of light, with nearby buildings providing 50 more studios for the overflow of artists. Boucher called the complex La Ruche — French for "beehive" — because he wanted the artists to work like bees in a beehive; he dedicated a large room in the complex where the poorer artists could draw a model that he paid for, and included a small theatre space for plays and concerts.
La Ruche opened in 1902, with the blessing of the French government. It was often the first destination of émigré artists who arrived in Paris eager to join the art scene and find affordable housing. Living and working in close quarters, many artists forged lasting friendships, e.g., Chaïm Soutine with Modigliani, Chagall and poet Blaise Cendrars, and influenced each other's work. Artists who lived and worked in La Ruche include Amedeo Modigliani, Yitzhak Frenkel, Diego Rivera, Tsuguharu Foujita, Jacob, Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Moïse Kisling, Pinchus Krémègne, Ossip Zadkine, Jules Pascin, Marc Chagall, Amshey Nurenberg, Jacques Lipchitz, and more.
The term "School of Paris," which André Warnod had used innocently to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris, soon gained currency, often as a derogatory label by critics who saw the foreign artists — many of whom were Jewish — as a threat to the purity of French art. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles, noted for coining the terms "Fauvism" and "Cubism" (also meant disparagingly), called immigrant artists unwashed "Slavs disguised as representatives of French art". Waldemar George, himself a French Jew, in 1931 lamented that the term "allows any artist to pretend he is French ... it refers to French tradition but instead annihilates it."
School of Paris artists were progressively marginalised. Beginning in 1935, articles about Chagall no longer appeared in art publications (apart from those published for Jewish audiences) and, by June 1940, when the Vichy government took power, School of Paris artists could no longer exhibit in Paris at all.
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