"Chagall, Modigliani, Soutine.. Paris as a School 1905-1940" exhibition.

Soutine:  Portrait of Miestchaninoff 1923/4

The question poses itself at the Museum of the art and history of Judaism.  Is there such a thing as Jewish art? The short answer is that there is no 'Jewish' art.... just Jewish artists. Some of the greatest are on show at the Museum, in the Marais area of Paris, including Soutine, Modigliani, sculptress Chana Orloff  and a few Chagalls. All are artists of the School of Paris. Most knew each other and several worked side by side. Paris was a rich melting pot in the early 20th century. 

Sonia Delaunay:  Philomène 1907

Sonia Delaunay's original name was Sara Elievna Stern. Born in Odessa, she came to Paris in 1906 from St Petersburg, where her uncle had brought her up. Urged to return home by her family, but wanting to stay, Sonia made a 'mariage  blanc' (marriage of convenience) with critic and art dealer Wilhelm Uhde in 1908. Like the fauves painters and Matisse, she used areas of flat pure colour, with a heavy outline of black in the above portrait of Philomène. The background evokes Russian textiles. Sonia later married for love and with her husband Robert, who was also an artist, explored the possibilities of creating movement in a painting by arranging blocks of pure colour in cubist fashion. 

Sonia Delaunay  Electric Prisms No. 41  1913-1914

It was the poet and art critic Apollinaire who named this style "Orphic Cubism". Sonia was the first living female artist to have a retrospective at the Louvre, in 1964. She died in Paris in 1979, aged 94.

Otto Freundlich's expressive, colourful abstract composition features in the exhibition:

Otto Freundlich:  Composition, circa 1919

This bold work is normally on show in the Pontoise museum, in the area North of Paris where he painted. In nearby Auvers, where Van Gogh is buried, there is a moving memorial to Otto Freundlich on his companion's grave (Jeanne Kosnick-Kloss). Sadly Otto died in the concentration camp of Maidenek, Poland, in 1943. A very striking sculpture by the same artist, who was one of the leaders in the development towards abstraction, is on display:

Otto Freundlich:  Masque d'homme 1911

Freundlich met Picasso at the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre, where both of them lived in ramshackle studios. Freundlich kept away from the centre of the Cubist movement; he was preoccupied by the human figure. This figure of a human head was used on the front of the catalogue of degenerate art by Hitler at the exhibition meant to stigmatise certain modern artists in 1937. 

Artists gravitated to Paris from different directions, mainly East. Many were Jews escaping from the oppressive laws or purges in such countries as Russia, Poland or  Lithuania. Others like  the Italian artist Modigliani were escaping poverty. 

Modigliani:  La Chevelure noire or Jeune fille brune assise 1918

The identity of Modigliani's model is unknown; she just goes by the title "Black hair" or "Young brunette sitting". She has the elongated neck typical of Modigliani's style and the melancholy expression which pervades many works by the School of Paris. This portrait was bought by Picasso. Several of the paintings by Modigliani are normally on display at the Musée de l'Orangerie, near the Concorde Square. 

Modigliani's sculptures are more rare; the following example shows the interest in archaic styles which influenced many early 20th century artists.

Modigliani  Tête de femme  (Head of a Woman) 1911-1913

Modigliani came from an old aristocratic but impoverished Jewish family in Livorno, Italy. He arrived in Paris in 1906. His first love was sculpture, but he changed to painting when the stone dust was too bad for his lungs, since he suffered from tuberculosis and he eventually died young. His companion Jeanne could not afford to call the doctor and it was too late when his friends found him in a coma in his Montparnasse studio.

Modigliani: Portrait of Chana Orloff  1916

On this inkpen portrait of fellow sculptor Chana Orloff, Modigliani wrote a tribute in Hebrew: "Chana, daughter of Raphael". 

Chana's own sculpture  often concentrated on portraits, women and maternity.

Chana Orloff   Maternity  1914

Having worked as a seamstress in Jaffa for 5 years, Chana Orloff (1888 - 1968) came to Paris from her native Odessa to learn couture. She became one of the great sculptors of the 20th century. Her studio, in the 14th district of Paris, is open on weekends for guided visits. During the traumatic time of World War 2, Chana's studio was ransacked by the Nazis and her scuptures destroyed.

Orloff's works demonstrate the simplification of volume sought by 20th century avant-garde sculptors and also a gentleness, obtained by her smoothly polished surfaces. 

Orloff  Serenity  1916  Wood

Chana Orloff was familiar with most of the other artists on the Paris scene, including Jacob Lipchitz, whose portrait of the American writer Gertrude Stein is on show:

Jacques (Jacob) Lipchitz  Gertrude Stein  1920

Hoping that Gertrude Stein would buy his sculpture portrait, Lipchitz presented the work to her. But she didn't! He had gone back to a more naturalistic style after the 1st World War and away from his previous cubism. The work belongs nowadays to the Pompidou Centre.

Lipchitz  Marin a la guitare  1914-1915

The style of his  "Sailor with guitar" would have perhaps suited Mme Stein more!

Zadkine  Le Prophète  1914

Ossip Zadkine studied in the same sculpture studio in Paris as Lipchitz (Jean-Antoine Injalbert's). His figure of "The Prophet" has a certain primitive roughly hewn feel about it. Zadkine had previously, as a very young man, learnt wood carving in Great Britain. In 1911 he installed himself in  the "Ruche", the busy "Beehive" in South West Paris, not far from the cafes of Montparnasse where all artists were to be found, often on the same evening. Born in the same town as Chagall- Vitebsk- which is now in Belarus, Zadkine lived in later life in the rue d'Assas, near the Luxembourg gardens. His studio, crammed full with his works, documents and sketches, is open to the public. Along with many foreign and French artists, Zadkine is buried in Montparnasse cemetery.

Marc Chagall is very familiar to most art lovers. Some of his illustrations are on show at this exhibition.

Chagall   Study for Adam and Eve 1911-1912

This illustration, in a private collection, is done in gouache on paper. Chagall uses jewel-like colours to represent his Biblical subject.

Chagall  Villager holding the Torah  1928

The above oil portrait is housed in the Museum of Modern Art.

Memories of his Russian, Jewish origins are ever-present in many of his paintings.

Chagall's studio has a wild look about it in this early Parisian painting:

Chagall   L'atelier   1911

It was painted the year after he arrived from his native Russia.  In his autobiography, Chagall wrote that he was struck by the shimmering play of colours in France, whereas in Russia all was dark, brown, grey.

Other artists on show who are not quite so well known as Chagall include Jules Pascin:

Jules Pascin  Portrait of Hermin David  1908

Pascin came to Paris from Bulgaria in 1906 and soon met the Miniaturist artist Hermine David who was to become his wife. Hemingway nicknamed Pascin the "prince of Montparnasse". His subjects were often women and fragile-looking girls.

A certain lightness of style similar to Pascin's is visible in the self portrait by Mela Muter, originally from Warsaw. She was one of the first artists of the Paris School.

Mela Muter  Selfportait  1915

Aged 25, Mela Muter came to Paris in 1901 and stayed until her death in 1967.  Like many, she fled South from the capital during the Nazi occupation.  She enjoyed popularity as a portrait painter in Paris, showed her works at various Salons and was a member of the Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes. 

Integral members of the Paris School were Kisling, from Krakow, Krémègne, from Zaloudok and Kikoine from Gomel.

Kisling  Port of Marseilles  1940

Kisling painted this view of Marseilles shortly before leaving for exile during World War 2. After a spell in the United States, he returned to France in 1946.

As well as revealing the preoccupations of contemporary art, whether Cubist, Abstract or Primitivist, the School of Paris group of artists imported a great deal of Expressionism through its Eastern immigrants. 

The exhibition ends with a sinister sculpture by Chana Orloff which assimilates the shape of a locust to a cannon. World War Two with its sufferings was imminent.

The Museum of the Art and History of Judaism is open daily, except Monday and situated at: 71 rue du Temple.  Nearest Metro: Rambuteau. This exhibition runs until 31st October, 2021.

In the courtyard stands the figure of Dreyfus by sculptor, cartoonist and Resistance fighter "Tim", a permanent reminder of the errors caused by prejudice and anti-semitism.

Hommage to Dreyfus   2003 

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