Paris School
Description
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. Read more ↗
Key Artists
Amedeo Modigliani
Italian-born Montparnasse master whose distinctive portraits and sensual nudes merged African mask stylizations and mannerist elongation with intense bohemian melancholy.
Marc Chagall
Russian-Jewish visionary who combined Parisian Cubist and Fauvist formal innovations with poetic childhood folklore and Jewish memories of Vitebsk.
Chaim Soutine
Belarusian-born Expressionist of the School of Paris whose tempestuous, heavily impastoed portraits, landscapes, and slaughtered beef carcasses conveyed visceral emotion.
Jules Pascin
Bulgarian-born 'Prince of Montparnasse' celebrated for delicate, pearlescent draftsmanship and sensitive, melancholic depictions of Parisian models and nightlife.
Moïse Kisling
Polish-born painter and central social figure of Montparnasse whose landscapes and portraits featured polished, enamel-like surfaces and rich, melancholy color tones.
Tsuguharu Foujita
Japanese expatriate master who achieved superstar status in Paris by fusing fine Japanese calligraphic brushwork and milky-white opalescent glazes with French oil painting nudes.
Famous Artworks
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Fun Facts
The term 'School of Paris' (École de Paris) does not describe a single formal style or manifesto, but rather the vibrant international community of expatriate artists - including Italians, Russians, Poles, Japanese, and Bulgarians - who transformed the cafés and cheap studios of Montparnasse into the capital of global modernism.
↗ Source: tate.org.uk
In December 1917, Amedeo Modigliani's only solo exhibition during his lifetime at the Berthe Weill Gallery in Paris was shut down by French police on its opening day on charges of indecency because his sensual nude portraits depicted pubic hair.
↗ Source: metmuseum.org