School of Paris

Raoul Dufy, Regatta at Cowes, (1934), Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art.

School of Paris (French: École de Paris) refers to two distinct groups of artists — a group of medieval manuscript illuminators, and a group of non-French artists working in Paris before World War I. Additionally, it refers to a similar group of artists living in Paris between the two world wars and beyond.

Medieval illuminators

The School of Paris also refers to the many manuscript illuminators, whose identities are mostly unknown, who made Paris an internationally important centre of illumination throughout the Romanesque and Gothic periods of the Middle Ages, and for some time into the Renaissance. The most famous of these artists were Jean Pucelle and Jean Fouquet. The Limbourg brothers, originally from the Netherlands, also spent time in Paris, as well as Burgundy and Bourges, but their style is not typical of the Paris of the day. Many of the painters in Parisian workshops were women.

Modern School of Paris

Sonia Delaunay, Rythme, 1938

The School of Paris describes, not an art movement or a learning institution, but instead is more indicative of the importance of Paris as a center of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century.

The group of non-French artists in Paris before World War I created in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism, and includes artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian and French artists like Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse.

Many of these same artists, plus Jean Arp, Amedeo Modigliani, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Joan Miró, Constantin Brâncuşi, Raoul Dufy, René Iché, Tsuguharu Foujita, Emmanuel Mané-Katz and the Artists from Belarus, including Chaim Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, Ossip Zadkine, Jacques Lipschitz or the Russian, prince born in Saint Petersburg Alexis Arapoff and others worked in Paris between World War I and World War II, in various styles including Surrealism and Dada. A significant group of Jewish artists working together came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris. This group included Mané-Katz, Soutine, Marc Chagall, Moise Kisling, Jules Pascin and Camille Pissaro.

After the Second World War the term School of Paris often referred to Tachisme, Lyrical Abstraction, the European equivalent of American abstract expressionism and those artists are also related to Cobra. Important proponents were Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Nicolas de Staël, Hans Hartung, Serge Poliakoff, Bram van Velde and Georges Mathieu, among others.

Gallery

• 
  Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon, 1912-13, oil on canvas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
• 
  Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of Chaïm Soutine, (1916)
• 
  Amedeo Modigliani, Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz (1916)
• Constantin Brâncuşi works in Atelier Brâncuşi, Paris
  Constantin Brâncuşi works in Atelier Brâncuşi, Paris

Further reading

• West, Shearer (1996). The Bullfinch Guide to Art. UK: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ISBN 978-0-8212-2137-2.
• Nieszawer, Nadine (2000). Peintres Juifs à Paris 1905-1939. france: Denoel. ISBN 978-2-207-25142-3.

See also

• Tachisme
• Cobra

External links

• Template:Fr icon Template:En icon Nadine Nieszawer's website, dedicated to the School of Paris 1905-1939 (includes many biographies)
• French illuminated manuscripts: late fourteenth to early sixteenth century - British Library
• The Second Spanish School of Paris
• Website for Jewish art of the School of Paris circle
• school-of-paris.org : community website open to any fan to Ecole de Paris in the world