From Pogroms to Promised Land

What the Russians started & the French finished Part I

There is an excellent but heart breaking exhibition at the Museum of the Art and History of Judaism (MAHJ), ‘Chagall, Modigliani, Soutine: Paris pour École 1905 - 1940’. As I made my way, historically and thematically, through the exhibition, I was reminded of W. Somerset Maugham’s retelling of the Mesopotamian tale, Appointment in Samarra. I’m sure you know it. A man in Baghdad goes to the market and is jostled by a woman he recognizes as Death. He jumps on his horse, rides day and night. His destination: Samara. His goal: To escape Death. After a hard, long journey, he arrives in Samarra. Death is there, waiting. The man’s rendezvous with Death had been in Samarra all along. You cannot escape your fate, your destiny.

Since we already know how this story ends, we want to warn these artists. But we can’t. So we watch as they build their careers, build their lives, inhale the freedom that is Paris, knowing all along how that freedom is going to be gradually stripped from them until everything tragically falls apart.

The title, Paris for School is a riff on the term, School of Paris which refers to the disparate group of French and foreign artists who settled in Paris during the first half of the 20th century. (Figure 1) They didn’t share an art movement or an institution. What they shared was a desire to live in Paris, the center of Western art at the time, during their time. Artists from all over the world fled terror (pogroms for Jewish artists) and boredom (America for white artists) and everything in between; to learn their craft, to try their luck, in Paris. Their ‘school’ was a loose community, of French and foreign, but mostly foreign artists who lived and worked in Montparnasse. You probably think I wrote Montparnasse when I meant Montmartre. But I didn’t. It is true that the cool kids first hung out in Montmartre but when Picasso and his crew decided that the place was too crowded, too overrun with tourists, they decamped for Montparnasse and everyone else did, too.

Figure 1. Paris pour École, photo of students at La Ruche, Montparnasse

The term “School of Paris” was coined or maybe popularized in 1925, half way through the period the exhibition covers, when the writer André Warnod condemned the Salon des Independents (where these artists exhibited their works) for changing how artists’ works were displayed at the annual exhibitions. Seems that under the direction of Paul Signac (Seurat’s friend and Pointillism heir) the Salon abandoned the ‘purity’ of presenting artists alphabetically and started grouping them by country of origin. Warnod denounced this practice as marginalizing foreign artists. But motivated by xenophobia, nationalism and anti-semitism, the term was not abandoned, it did not go away. It would increasingly be used to distinguish French artists, the École Française, from the foreign artists, the École de Paris. And when the time came, the lists of artists and their origins were very helpful in rounding up Jews.

I was interested to read what other reviewers had written about this exhibition, so I googled it, of course. I didn’t find much, but I did find reviews of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, held 36 years ago, in 1985, entitled ''The Circle of Montparnasse: Jewish Artists in Paris 1905-1945’' (Figure 2) And I found reviews of a book written 20 years later (2015) by Stanley Meisler, an L.A. Times foreign correspondent, whose book is called “Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse” in which Chaim Soutine, a distant relative of the author’s and one of the artists discussed in both New York and Paris exhibitions, takes center stage.

Figure 2. The Circle of Montparnasse, Jewish Artists in Paris 1905 - 1945, Jewish Museum NY, 1985

As one reviewer in the New York Times writes, the catalogue of the exhibition at the Jewish Museum of New York, raises a couple of interesting issues. One issue is often raised in conjunction with the art of the Italian Renaissance - how is it that so many people of such talent appeared at the same time and in the same place.

A second issue is one that Jewish artists share with Islamic ones. And that is, both religions ban “graven images’’. In Islam, while nothing in the Quran explicitly bans images, the Hadith, which is based upon the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, does explicitly ban the drawing of images of any living creature. And Muslims are virtually unanimous on the subject of Allah—do not depict under any circumstances.

For Jews, the ban is the Second of the Ten Commandments, written by God, handed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The commandment specifically forbids Jews from creating sculpted or painted images that can be worshipped. Jews have almost unanimously avoided visual representations of the Deity. But the prohibition against graven images is one that Jewish artists continue to think about and struggle with.

 Stanley Meisler’s book, (Figure 3) according to William Grimes, did something very important - it turned the spotlight away from Picasso and his circle and shone it on a group of lesser known artists whose contribution to the art scene of Paris had been casually overlooked, maybe intentionally ignored. According to Grimes, Meisler introduced the world of these ‘Jewish expatriates from the Russian empire … within the Paris art world, and the often xenophobic response to their presence”.

Figure 3. Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse, Stanley Meisler, 2015

Deborah Solomon (one of my favorite art critics) also wrote a review of Meisler’s book. Like Grimes, she credits Meisler with ‘shifting the perspective from Picasso and his merry band to a group of exiles who conversed in Yiddish and were centered… in Montparnasse.’ According to Solomon, “(s)cholars of the period tend to act as if the only religion that matters is the religion of modern art.’ Which would have been great if the Jewish painters in Paris, who were to a great extent the heart and soul of the Paris School, hadn’t been singled out and rounded up when the Germans rode into town.

So, the exhibition at the MAJH isn’t ground breaking. But, I guess because it is in Paris, or maybe because the scenographer was more imaginative, or given a bigger budget, the Paris show escapes the criticism one reviewer leveled against the New York one. Which was that there was no evocation of place. Not the case at all here in Paris. And since the places evoked are just a metro ride away, you can go visit many of them! The catalog for this exhibition has a lot of interesting information. There is a list of artists, their countries of origin, their biographies and their names at birth. There is a map of the academies and cafes and ateliers where they learned and laughed and sometimes earned a living. There is a chronology. But no bibliography. Oh well.

The exhibition (as well as its predecessor in New York) moves along chronologically and thematically, beginning with the first influx of Jewish artists at the beginning of the 20th century. Artists like Sonia Terk (who married Robert Delaunay) (Figure 4) and Jules Pascin, (Figure 5) neither of whom fit our stereotype of Jewish artists fleeing poverty and ghettos for Paris. Both were from moneyed families and both had studied art before arriving in Paris.

Figure 4. Swimsuits, Sonia Delaunay, 1928

Figure 5. Hermine in Black Clothes, Jules Pascin, 1920

The second section focuses on the years of the largest Jewish migration, when Chagall, (Figure 6) Soutine (Figure 7) and Modigliani (Figure 8) arrived. Both exhibitions march us through World War I when a significant number of foreign artists took up arms to fight for the French. (Figure 9) And then on to happier times, the crazy, exuberant, wild, Roaring Twenties when Jules Pascin was given the sobriquet of the Prince of Montparnasse by none other than Ernest Hemingway. The Great Depression followed, bringing with it nationalism and anti-Semitism. The exhibition ends with WW II. Some artists figured it out soon enough and fled, many to the United States. But other Jewish artists in Paris were not so lucky. They were rounded up and killed or transported to concentration camps to die there. And that was how the first half of the last century went. We seem to be on track with this one.

Figure 6. Eiffel Tower, Marc Chagall, 1929

Figure 7. Petit Pâtissier, Chaim Soutine, 1922-23

Figure 8. Portrait of Dédie, Amedeo Modigliani, 1918

Figure 9. Ossip Zadkine’s Identity Card, First World War

Next week, part 2. A closer look at the artists of the School of Paris.

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

Dear Reader, I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Please click here or sign up below to receive more articles plus other original content from me, Dr. B. Merci!

And, if you enjoyed reading this review, please consider writing a comment. Thank you.