From Pogroms to Promised Land

What the Russians Started & the French Finished, Part II

So, now that I have set the stage for this exhibition, (From Pogroms to Promised Land Part I) I can tell you about some of the artists associated with the Ecole de Paris. We’ll start with a school rather than a person, the Académie Matisse. Academies sprang up in Paris to teach all the art students and novice artists who were arriving in Paris. Just as at the beginning of the previous century when women wanted to seriously study art and the state sponsored academies were closed to them. French artists (male of course) saw the chance to augment their meager incomes with teaching. (which I wrote about here: When the Brush is No Mightier than the Sword) One of the most successful academies at the beginning of the 20th century was the short-lived Académie Matisse. Which struck me as particularly incongruous since Matisse had been kicked out of more than a few academies himself for his ideas about color (Figure 1) and how to represent the human form. But when some wealthy patrons (among them Gertrude and Leo Stein) urged him to share his ideas about painting, he was happy to comply, coming as the offer did with a free studio. Although the Académie Matisse only lasted 3 years, over 100 foreign artists were trained there. One of whom was a wealthy young Russian woman called Sarah Stern who became Sonia Delaunay. (Figure 2) The styles of these artists were so varied that when Matisse left Paris in 1911, what those artists share was a community rather than a style.

Figure 1. Portrait of Mme Matisse, Henri Matisse, 1905

Figure 2. Philomène, Sonia Terk (Delaunay) 1907

We’ve all heard of the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre, right? (Figure 3) The former ballroom and piano factory that a gang of artists took over in 1889 and divided into 20 small ateliers. The building was dark and dirty, with tiny studios on either side of a single corridor. There was no heat and only a single source of water. On windy days, when it swayed and creaked, artists were reminded of the laundry boats, the bateaux- lavoirs, on the Seine, where working class people washed their dirty clothes. (Figure 4) At the height of the Bateau Lavoir’s popularity, artists were joined by poets and actors, dealers and collectors. But, eventually everyone moved on.

Figure 3. Bateau-Lavoir, Montmartre

Figure 4. Bateau Lavoir on Seine, Paris

But where to? The artists who abandoned Montmartre moved on to Montparnasse. The draw? La Ruche, in the 15ème, on Passage Danzig. A three-story circular structure that looked like a large beehive, a ruche. (Figure 5) Gustave Eiffel had designed it to display the wines of Bordeaux for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the Paris World Fair. Like the structure he built for the 1889 exposition, the Eiffel Tower, La Ruche was meant to be temporary. But the sculptor and philanthropist, Alfred Boucher had another idea. He had it dismantled and re-erected as artists’ studios. At La Ruche, the rent was cheap and no one was evicted for non-payment. A story is told of one Russian painter who got off the train in Paris with 3 rubles in his pocket and 2 words in French, "Passage Danzig”. That was all he needed to get to La Ruche, which was located next door to the abattoir (slaughterhouse) on rue Vaugirard. The soulful sounds of animals being slaughtered to say nothing of the smell, must have been just awful.

Figure 5. La Ruche, Passage Danzig, 15ieme arrondissement, Paris

More than a few artists whose names we now know, called La Ruche home, (Figure 6) at least for a while. Among them, Marc Chagall, (Figure 7) who arrived in Paris in 1911. He was 24 and he had already come a long way. Life for him started in the Pale of Settlement. Chagall recalled one time some boys (he called them pogromniks) asked him if he was a Jew. Chagall remembered thinking: "My pockets are empty, my fingers sensitive, my legs weak and they are out for blood. My death would be futile. …” So, he said no. A few years later, he attended art school in Saint Petersburg where, as a Jew, he was required to carry a permit, like blacks on the beach in Miami at the same time.

Figure 6. Soutine, Modigliani, Chagall and others at La Ruche

Figure 7. Marc Chagall, 1920

At La Ruche, he hung out with other Jews from other places. They shared a language, Yiddish, and a culture. Returning home in 1914 to marry his sweetheart, WWI broke out and the borders closed. He was stuck back where he had started. He didn’t get back to Paris until 1923. For a long time life was good. And he didn’t notice when things started getting worse. It was only with the help of Varian Fry, a young American newspaperman working with the Emergency Rescue Committee and Alfred Barr at the Museum of Modern Art, that Chagall and his family were able to flee to the United States at the last minute. How last minute? In April 1941, Chagall and his wife were stripped of their French citizenship. In Marseilles with other Jews, awaiting passage, they were arrested. Varian Fry pressured the French police to release the Chagalls. The others were not so lucky. Their lives ended there, Chagall had many years of creating art in front of him.

Art critic Michael Lewis noted, "As cosmopolitan an artist as (Chagall became), his storehouse of visual imagery … (was) the landscape of his childhood, with its snowy streets, wooden houses, and ubiquitous fiddlers... “ (Figure 8) That’s not exactly true, of course, because the Eiffel Tower became another constant, swirling around or anchoring any number of paintings. (Figure 9) Art curator, James Sweeney, noted that "Chagall's contribution to contemporary art … (was) avoiding factual illustration on the one hand, and non-figurative abstractions on the other”. Chagall returned to Paris after WWII and an embarrassed France showered him with commissions, among them, the prize of decorating the ceiling of the Opera Garnier. (Figure 10).

Figure 8. The Birthday, Marc Chagall, 1915

Figure 9. Eiffel Tower, Marc Chagall, 1911

Figure 10. Ceiling Opera Garnier, Marc Chagall, 1963

Modigliani, Pascin and Soutine, all friends from La Ruche survived the first world war but didn’t see the other side of the second. Modigliani was the first to go.

Amedeo Modigliani’s birth coincided with the financial collapse of his father's businesses. Ironically, his birth saved the family from complete ruin. Apparently there was an Italian law which stated that creditors could not seize the bed of a pregnant woman in labor or a mother with her newborn child. At the moment Modigliani’s father’s creditors arrived to claim the family’s treasures, his mother went into labor. Talk about timing! The family’s most valuable possessions had already been piled onto the bed with her. Amedeo was a sickly child and got tuberculosis in his teens. It would eventually kill him but he spent his entire short lifetime hiding the disease from his friends. Which was not very nice since it was both incurable and contagious.

Modigliani moved to Paris from Livorno (Italy) in 1906 at the age of 22. He first hung out at the Bateau-Lavoir then decamped for La Ruche with everyone else. Modigliani cultivated the reputation of a hopeless drunk and voracious drug user. The use of both surely eased his pain and masked his illness. I have written about the only solo show he had during his lifetime, in 1917, at Berthe Weill's gallery here: (https://www.museemusings.com/home/a-little-gallerist-with-big-ideas) A painting of a female nude whose pubic hair so shocked a passing policeman that the entire show was in jeopardy of being shut down until the offending painting was taken from the window. (Figure 11) Modigliani died at 35, in 1920, in Paris. He left his young widow, who was 8 months pregnant. She jumped from a 5th floor window, killing herself and their unborn baby. And he left a stack of paintings of young women, clothed and nude, seated and supine. (Figure 12) All reflecting his Italian roots, the tilted head of Byzantine icons (Figure 13) and the long necks of Parmigianino’s Madonnas (Figure 14).

Figure 11. Nu couche, Amedeo Modigliani,1917-18, sold for $170 million

Figure 12. Chevelure Noire, Amedeo Modigliani, before 1920

Figure 13. Madonna & Child, Simone Martini

Figure 14. Madonna of the Long Neck, Parmigianino

Jules Pascin, dubbed the ‘Prince of Montparnasse,’ was born into a wealthy merchant family in Bulgaria. (Figure 15) In 1905, when he began contributing drawings to the German satirical magazine Simplicissimus. He changed his name to Pascin, (an anagram of his birth name, Pincas) at his father’s request. That same year, he moved to Paris and had no trouble selling his drawings and watercolors (Figure 16). When WWI broke out, Pascin emigrated to the United States to avoid military service in the Bulgarian army. Unlike other emigre artists, after he landed in New York, he travelled south, through the southern United States and into Cuba. Although he was granted U.S. citizenship in 1920, he decided to return to Paris.

Figure 15. Photograph of two models (sisters) and Jules Pascin in trade mark bowler hat

Figure 16. Pascin drawing

The exhibition at the MahJ links him to the Roaring Twenties, And that makes sense. As the Prince of Montparnasse, he spent his money as quickly as he earned it, creating thousands of watercolors, sketches, drawings and caricatures for newspapers and magazines. He hosted parties, dined out often with friends at the Select and the Dome. A chapter in Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast is called "With Pascin At the Dôme”. Like Toulouse Lautrec, Pascin’s best known works are studies of young women, prostitutes between clients or models waiting for their sessions to be over. (Figures 17) A depressive and alcoholic, Pascin slit his wrist and hanged himself the night before a one-man show. It was 1930. He was 45.

Figure 17. Nude reading, Jules Pascin

The last artist who didn’t make it through the war was Chaim Soutine. Born in a small Russian village in 1893, he was beaten up when he was 13 but not by the Jew baiters and haters who harassed Chagall but by his own people. His crime? A drawing, a graven image, of his rabbi. He spent weeks in the hospital and took the 25 rubles he was awarded as damages and got out of town - first to art classes in Minsk, and then to the art mecca of the time - Paris.  And for the first 10 years, he was very, very poor, squatting at La Ruche. Which I told you was very close to the abattoir on rue Vaugirard. Which explains all those paintings of animal carcasses. (Figure 18) At least one time, the stench from a decaying carcass that Soutine was painting, was so bad that his fellow artists at La Ruche called the police. Another time, Chagall saw blood leaking out of Soutine’s room and rushed out of La Ruche screaming,"Someone has killed Soutine.” Ten carcass paintings survive (an odd word no?) from this series and have become among his most well-known.

Figure 18. Carcasse, Chaim Soutine, 1925

Modigliani and Soutine were great friends. Modi (as his friends called him) painted Soutine's portrait several times, (Figure 19) In 1917, he painted it on the door of an apartment owned by their art dealer, Leopold Zborowski. Zborowski supported Soutine with a small stipend during the first world war. But he couldn’t find buyers for Soutine’s paintings. After the war, Paul Guillaume became Soutine’s dealer. And one day in 1922, Soutine’s life changed. That day Dr. Barnes, yes THAT Dr. Barnes of Philadelphia, walked into Guillaume’s gallery and saw Soutine’s painting, The Pastry Cook, (Figure 20) which is still in the Guillaume Collection, at the Orangerie.

Figure 19. Portrait of Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani (before 1920)

Figure 20. Le Petit Patissier, Chaim Soutine, 1922-23

Barnes went directly to Soutine’s studio and bought at least 60 paintings for $3000 ($50,000 today). Legend has it that as soon as Barnes left, Soutine hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to Nice, nearly 600 miles away. With Barnes’ imprimatur, more sales followed but the person Soutine had been before Barnes was the person he still was - ornery and opinionated, ready to destroy a painting he didn’t like, even if he had already sold it. And he was so disorganized he couldn’t get his papers together to get out of Paris. When the Gestapo arrived, he was forced into hiding. Which is never good. Which is especially not good if you are suffering from a stomach ulcer. Finally, the pain was too much, Soutine left his hiding place for emergency surgery in Paris. But it was too late. On 9 August 1943, Chaim Soutine died of a perforated ulcer. He was 50 years old.

By the time Soutine died, the School of Paris was no more. The German occupation and Vichy government led to the exile or death of the Jews who had been living in France. It led to the destruction, theft and despoliation of their work. A companion exhibition based upon a book written by Hersch Fenster in Yiddish in 1951, and now translated into French, pays homage to these artists, many of them unknown.

And that’s how that all went down. The exhibition is moving and filled with information. I have just booked to visit La Ruche. It will be open for the two days of Journées du Patrimoine, I’ll tell you about it after my visit.

Copyright © 2021 Beverly Held, Ph.D. All rights reserved

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