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School of Paris

This article is about the 20th century School of Paris. For the medieval manuscript illuminators, see School of Paris (Middle Ages).
"Paris School" redirects here. For the school of thought in security studies, see Paris School (security studies).

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.

School of Paris
André Warnod, Les Berceaux de la jeune peinture (1925). Cover illustration by Amedeo Modigliani
LocationFrance, Israel, US
Major figuresMarc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Yitzhak Frenkel, Jules Pascin, Amedeo Modigliani

The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940 the city drew artists from all over the world and became a centre for artistic activity. School of Paris coined by André Warnod, was used to describe this loose community, particularly of non-French artists, centered in the cafes, salons and shared workspaces and galleries of Montparnasse.[1] Many artists of Jewish origin formed a prominent part of the School of Paris and later heavily influenced art in Israel.

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

Before World War I the name was also applied to artists involved in the many collaborations and overlapping new art movements, between Post-Impressionists and Pointillism and Orphism (art), Fauvism and Cubism. In that period the artistic ferment took place in Montmartre and the well-established art scene there. But Picasso moved away, the war scattered almost everyone, by the 1920s Montparnasse had become a centre of the avant-garde. After World War II the name was applied to another different group of abstract artists.

Early artists

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Marc Chagall, The Fiddler, 1912–13

Before World War I, a group of expatriates in Paris created art in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The group in its broader sense included artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. Associated French artists included Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. Whilst in its more narrow description described Chagall and Modigliani.[2] Picasso and Matisse have been described as twin leaders (chefs d'école) of the school before the war.[3]

La Ruche

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See also: La Ruche (residence)

Many École de Paris artists lived in the iconic La Ruche, a complex of studio apartments and other facilities in Montparnasse on the Left Bank, at 2 Passage Dantzig, built by a successful sculptor, Alfred Boucher, who wanted to develop a creative hub where struggling artists could live, work and interact.[4] Built from materials dismantled from the Medoc Wine Pavilion from the 1900 Paris World's Fair, it comprised 50 modest studios with large windows that let in a lot of light, with nearby buildings providing 50 more studios for the overflow of artists.[4] Boucher called the complex La Ruche – French for "beehive" – because he wanted the artists to work like bees in a beehive; he dedicated a large room in the complex where the poorer artists could draw a model that he paid for, and included a small theater space for plays and concerts.[4][5] La Ruche opened in 1902, with the blessing of the French government. It was often the first destination of émigré artists who arrived in Paris eager to join the art scene and find affordable housing.[4] Living and working in close quarters, many artists forged lasting friendships, e.g., Chaïm Soutine with Modigliani, Chagall and poet Blaise Cendrars, and influenced each other's works.[4][6] Artists who lived and worked in La Ruche include Amedeo Modigliani, Yitzhak Frenkel, Diego Rivera, Tsuguharu Foujita, Jacob, Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Moïse Kisling, Pinchus Krémègne, Ossip Zadkine, Jules Pascin, Marc Chagall, Amshey Nurenberg, Jacques Lipchitz, and more.[5][4]

After World War I

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Sonia Delaunay, Rythme, 1938

The term "School of Paris" was used in 1925 by André Warnod to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris.[7] The term soon gained currency, often as a derogatory label by critics who saw the foreign artists—many of whom were Jewish—as a threat to the purity of French art.[8] Art critic Louis Vauxcelles, noted for coining the terms "Fauvism" and "Cubism" (also meant disparagingly), called immigrant artists unwashed "Slavs disguised as representatives of French art".[9] Waldemar George, himself a French Jew, in 1931 lamented that the School of Paris name "allows any artist to pretend he is French...it refers to French tradition but instead annihilates it."[10]

School of Paris artists were progressively marginalised. Beginning in 1935, articles about Chagall no longer appeared in art publications (other than those published for Jewish audiences), and by June 1940 when the Vichy government took power, School of Paris artists could no longer exhibit in Paris at all.[10]

The artists working in Paris between World War I and World War II experimented with various styles including Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism and Dada. Foreign and French artists working in Paris included Jean Arp, Joan Miró, Constantin Brâncuși, Raoul Dufy, Tsuguharu Foujita, artists from Belarus like Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, the Lithuanian Jacques Lipchitz and Arbit Blatas, who documented some of the greatest representatives of the School of Paris in his oeuvre, the Polish artists Marek Szwarc and Morice Lipsi and others such as Russian-born prince Alexis Arapoff.[11]

A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris or the School of Montparnasse.[12] The "core members were almost all Jews, and the resentment expressed toward them by French critics in the 1930s was unquestionably fueled by anti-Semitism."[13] One account points to the 1924 Salon des Indépendants, which decided to separate the works of French-born artists from those by immigrants; in response critic Roger Allard [fr] referred to them as the School of Paris.[13][14] Jewish members of the group included Emmanuel Mané-Katz, Abraham Mintchine, Chaïm Soutine, Adolphe Féder, Marc Chagall, Yitzhak Frenkel Frenel, Moïse Kisling, Maxa Nordau and Shimshon Holzman.[15]

The artists of the Jewish School of Paris were stylistically diverse. Some, like Louis Marcoussis, worked in a Cubist style, but most tended toward expression of mood rather than an emphasis on formal structure.[12] Their paintings often feature thickly brushed or troweled impasto. The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme has works from School of Paris artists including Pascin, Kikoine, Soutine, Mintchine, Orloff and Lipschitz.[16]

Jewish School of Paris

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France

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Artists of Jewish origin had a marked influence in the École de Paris. Paris the capital of the art world attracted Jewish artists from Eastern Europe, several of them fleeing persecution, discrimination and pogroms. Many of these artists settled in Montparnasse.[17] Several Jewish painters were notable in the movement; these include Marc Chagall and Jules Pascin, the expressionists Chaïm Soutine and Isaac Frenkel Frenel as well as Amedeo Modigliani and Abraham Mintchine.[18][19][20] Many Jewish artists were known for depicting Jewish themes in their work, and some artists' paintings were imbued with heavy emotional tones. Frenkel described the artists as "members of the minority characterized by restlessness whose expressionism is therefore extreme in its emotionalism".[21]

The term l'École de Paris coined by the art critic André Warnod in 1925 in the magazine Comœdia, was intended by Warnod to negate xenophobic attitudes towards the foreign artists, many of whom were Jewish Eastern European.[22] Louis Vauxcelles wrote several monographs for the publisher Le Triangle, a prolific critic of Jewish painters. In a 1931 monograph, he wrote: "like a swarm of locusts, an invasion of Jewish colorists fell on Paris – on the Paris of Montparnasse. The causes of this exodus: the Russian revolution, and all that it brought with it of misery, pogroms, exactions, persecutions; the unfortunate young artists take refuge here, attracted by the influence of contemporary French art .... They will constitute [an element of] what the young critic will call the School of Paris. Many talents are to be considered in this crowd of metèques."[22]

Following the Nazi occupation of France; several prominent Jewish artists died during the holocaust,[23] leading to the dwindling of the Jewish School Of Paris. Others managed to left or fled Europe, mostly to Israel or the US.[18][17]

Israel

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Main article: Visual arts in Israel

Israeli art was dominated by the École de Paris inspired art between the 1920s and 1940s, with French art continuing to strongly influence Israeli art for the following decades.[24] This phenomenon began with the return of École de Paris Isaac Frenkel Frenel to Mandatory Palestine in 1925 and his opening of the Histadrut Art Studio.[25][26] His students were encouraged to continue their studies in Paris, and upon their return to Pre-Independence Israel amplified the influence of the Jewish artists of the School of Paris they encountered.[25][26][24]

These artists, centered in Montparnasse in Paris and in Tel Aviv and Safed in Israel, tended to portray humanity and the emotion evoked through human facial expression.[27] Furthermore, characteristically of Jewish Parisian Expressionism, the art was dramatic and even tragic, perhaps in connection to the suffering of the Jewish soul.[28] During the 1930s several such painters would paint scenes in Israel in an Impressionist style and a Parisian light, greyer dimmer compared to the powerful Mediterranean sun.[29][30]

Artists Quarter of Safed

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Main article: Artists Quarter of Safed

Safed, a city in the mountains of the Galilee and one of the four holy cities of Judaism, was a Centre of École de Paris artists during the mid and late 20th century. Artists were attracted there by the romantic and mystical qualities of the Kabbalistic mountain city. The artists' quarter founded in 1949 was formed at first by Moshe Castel, Shimshon Holzman, Yitzhak Frenkel and other artists, many of them influenced by or part of the School of Paris.[25][31][32] Though not united by a common artistic trope, it was a clear bastion of École de Paris in the country.[33][32]

The painters of the community who were influenced by the Ecole de Paris attempted to express or reflect the mystics of Tzfat. Painting with colors that reflect the dynamism and spirituality of the ancient city, painting the fiery or serene sunsets over Mt Meron.[34] Marc Chagall would walk the streets and paint portraits of religious children.[35] Several of these artists would commute between Safed and Paris.[35][33][32]

Musicians

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In the same period, the School of Paris name was also extended to an informal association of classical composers, émigrés from Central and Eastern Europe to who met at the Café Du Dôme in Montparnasse. They included Alexandre Tansman, Alexander Tcherepnin, Bohuslav Martinů and Tibor Harsányi. Unlike Les Six, another group of Montparnasse musicians at this time, the musical school of Paris was a loosely-knit group that did not adhere to any particular stylistic orientation.[36]

After World War II

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In the aftermath of the war, "nationalistic and anti-Semitic attitudes were discredited, and the term took on a more general use denoting both foreign and French artists in Paris".[8] But although the "Jewish problem" trope continued to surface in public discourse, art critics ceased making ethnic distinctions in using the term. While in the early 20th century French art critics contrasted The School of Paris and the École de France, after World War II the question was School of Paris vs School of New York.[37]

New School of Paris

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Post-World War II (Après-guerre), the term "New School of Paris" or École de Paris III often referred to tachisme, and lyrical abstraction, a European parallel to American Abstract Expressionism. These artists include again foreign ones and are also related to CoBrA.[38] Important proponents were Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Pierre Soulages, Nicolas de Staël, Hans Hartung, Wols, Serge Poliakoff, Bram van Velde, Simon Hantaï, Gérard Schneider, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun, Georges Mathieu, André Masson, Jean Degottex, Pierre Tal-Coat, Jean Messagier, Alfred Manessier, Jean Le Moal, Olivier Debré, Zoran Mušič, Jean-Michel Coulon and Fahrelnissa Zeid, among others. Many of their exhibitions took place at the Galerie de France in Paris, and then at the Salon de Mai where a group of them exhibited until the 1970s.

In 1996, UNESCO organized the 50th anniversary of the School of Paris (1954-1975), bringing together "100 painters of the New School of Paris." Notable artists included Arthur Aeschbacher, Jean Bazaine, Leonardo Cremonini, Olivier Debré, Chu Teh-Chun, Jean Piaubert, Jean Cortot, Zao Wou-ki, François Baron-Renouard, among others. This grand exhibition featured a hundred painters from 28 different countries at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The exhibition's curators were the art critics Henry Galy-Carles and Lydia Harambourg.

Art critics

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Art critics and renowned writers have written prefaces, books, and articles regarding the painters of the School of Paris, notably in periodicals such as Libération, Le Figaro, Le Peintre, Combat, Les Lettres françaises, Les Nouvelles littéraires. Among these writers and critiques were Waldermar George, Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, Jean-Paul Crespelle, Arthur Conte, Robert Beauvais, Jean Lescure, Jean Cassou, Bernard Dorival, André Warnod, Jean-Pierre Pietri, George Besson, Georges Boudaille, Jean-Albert Cartier, Jean Chabanon, Raymond Cogniat, Guy Dornand, Jean Bouret, Raymond Charmet, Florent Fels, Georges Charensol, Frank Elgar, Roger Van Gindertael, Georges Limbour, Marcel Zahar.

Selected artists

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Associated with artists

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "School of Paris". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved July 16, 2014.
  2. ^ "École de Paris". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2024-02-14.
  3. ^ a b c d "Glossary of art terms: School of Paris". Tate Gallery. Retrieved July 16, 2014.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Meisler, Stanley (2015). Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-27880-7.
  5. ^ a b Muratova, X. (1979). Paris. The Burlington Magazine, 121(912), 198-198. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  6. ^ Blood, A. (2011). Chagall and his circle: Philadelphia. The Burlington Magazine, 153(1301), 558-559. Retrieved May 4, 2021
  7. ^ André Warnod, Les Berceaux de la jeune peinture: Montmartre, Montparnasse, l'École de Paris, Edition Albin Michel, 1925
  8. ^ a b Alley, Ronald. "Ecole de Paris." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
  9. ^ a b c d e Deborah Solomon (June 25, 2015). "Montmartre/Montparnasse". New York Times Review of Books. Retrieved November 12, 2017.
  10. ^ a b Romy Golan (2010). "The École Francaise vs the École de Paris: The Debate about the Status of Jewish Artists in Paris between the Wars". In Rose-Carol Washton Long; Matthew Baigell; Milly Heyd (eds.). Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture: Anti-Semitism, Assimilation, Affirmation. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series. UPNE. p. 86. ISBN 978-1584657958 – via Google Books.
  11. ^ "Boston College University Libraries". Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Roditi, Eduard (1968). "The School of Paris". European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe, 3(2), 13–20.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wendy Smith, The immigrants who were 'School of Paris' artists in early 20th century, Washington Post, June 19, 2015
  14. ^ Stanley Meisner, Albert Barnes and his pursuit of non-French art in Paris, Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2015
  15. ^ Schechter, Ronald; Zirkin, Shoshanna (2009). "Jews in France". In M. Avrum Ehrlich (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture. Vol. 3. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 820–831, here: 829. ISBN 9781851098736. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
  16. ^ Jarrasse, Dominique, Guide du patrimoine juif parisien, éditions Parigramme, 2003, pages 213-225
  17. ^ a b "Paris School of Art | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
  18. ^ a b Nieszawer, Nadine (2020). Histoire des Artistes Juifs de l'École de Paris: Stories of Jewish Artists of the School of Paris (in French). France. ISBN 979-8633355567.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^ "Alexandre FRENEL". Bureau d'art Ecole de Paris. 2019-01-02. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
  20. ^ "Marc CHAGALL". Bureau d'art Ecole de Paris. 2019-01-02. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
  21. ^ Barzel, Amnon (1974). Frenel Isaac Alexander. Israel: Masada. p. 14.
  22. ^ a b "The Jewish painters of l'École de Paris-from the Holocaust to today". Jews, Europe, the XXIst century. 2021-11-25. Retrieved 2023-11-19. " l'École de Paris is a term coined by the art critic André Warnod in 1925, in the magazine Comœdia, to define the group formed by foreign painters in Paris. The École de Paris does not designate a movement or a school in the academic sense of the term, but a historical fact. In Warnod's mind this term was intended to counter a latent xenophobia rather than to establish a theoretical approach.
  23. ^ "Les peintres juifs de " l'École de Paris " imposent leur génie au MahJ". Times of Israel (in French). 6 July 2021.
  24. ^ a b Turner, Michael; Bohm-Duchen, Monica; Manor, Dalia; Blair, Sheila S.; Bloom, Jonathan M.; Koffler, Lia (2003). "Israel". Oxford Art Online. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T042514. ISBN 9781884446054.
  25. ^ a b c Hecht Museum (2013). After the School Of Paris (in English and Hebrew). Israel. ISBN 9789655350272.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  26. ^ a b "יצחק פרנקל: "חיבור ללא עצמים"". המחסן של גדעון עפרת (in Hebrew). 2011-01-01. Retrieved 2023-10-28.
  27. ^ Lurie, Aya (2005). Treasured in the Heart: Haim Gliksberg's Portraits. Tel Aviv. ISBN 978-9657161234.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  28. ^ Ofrat, Gideon (2012). The Birth of Secular Art from the Zionist Spirit (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Carmel. p. 234.
  29. ^ Ofrat, Gideon. Eretz Israeli Painting in the 1930s: between Tel Aviv and Paris. pp. 186–187.
  30. ^ Manor, Dalia (2018-01-01). "Between Paris and Tel Aviv: Jewish art in 1930s Eretz Yisrael". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  31. ^ Ballas, Gila. The Artists' of the 1920 and Cubism. Israel.
  32. ^ a b c Ofrat, Gideon (1987). The Golden Age of Painting in Safed (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Sifriat HaPoalim.
  33. ^ a b Ballas, Gila. The Artists' of the 1920 and Cubism. Israel.
  34. ^ Ofrat, Gideon. The Art and Artists of Safed (in Hebrew). pp. 89–90.
  35. ^ a b "FRENKEL FRENEL MUSEUM". www.frenkel-frenel.org. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  36. ^ Korabelʹnikova, Li͡udmila Zinovʹevna (2008). "European Destiny: The Paris School". Alexander Tcherepnin: The Saga of a Russian Emigré Composer. Indiana University Press. pp. 65–70. ISBN 978-0-253-34938-5.
  37. ^ Malcolm Gee, Between Paris and New York: Critical constructions of 'Englishness', c. 1945 - 1960, Art Criticism Since 1900, Manchester University Press, 1993, p. 180. ISBN 0719037840
  38. ^ Auber, Nathalie, 'Cobra after Cobra' and the Alba Congress: From Revolutionary Avant-Garde To Situationist Experiment, Third Text 20.2 (2006), Art Source. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.
  39. ^ "Bernard Cathelin Biography". Archived from the original on 2012-11-18.
  40. ^ "Pierre PALUE". Art en Seine (in French). Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  41. ^ a b c d James Voorhies (October 2004). "School of Paris". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved November 13, 2017.
  42. ^ a b c d e f g h "The School of Paris". Philadelphia Museum of Art. 2017.
  43. ^ a b c d John Russell, Art Review: Jewish Artists Who Made Paris Their Exuberant Garret, New York Times, March 10, 2000
  44. ^ "The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florence May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection". Museum of Modern Art. 1965. Retrieved November 12, 2017.
  45. ^ "Schule von Paris – Wikipedia – Enzyklopädie". wiki.edu.vn (in German). Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  46. ^ "1883 | Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel". www.tidhar.tourolib.org. Retrieved 2023-04-06.
  47. ^ "Abstract Alexander Frenel Frenkel was the first abstract painter in Israel. He learned his art from Paris in the twenties. When he exhibited at the "salon des independants" in 1924 in Paris, Mondrian acquired two of his paintings for an English collectionor". www.frenkel-frenel.org. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  48. ^ "Famous Israel artist in Cape Town". The South African Jewish Chronicle. January 1954.
  49. ^ Keehanski, Mendel (March 1951). "Pioneer of Art in Israel". The Pioneer Woman. USA. Frenkel may be considered the grand old man of modern painting in Israel in spite of the fact he is only about fifty.
  50. ^ "Macznik".
  51. ^ Peintres Juifs A Paris: École de Paris, Nadine Nieszawer et al., Éditions Denoël, Paris, 2000
  52. ^ Undzere Farpainikte Kinstler, Hersh Fenster, Imprimerie Abècé. 1951
  53. ^ Kossowska, Irena (December 2001). "Zygmunt (Sigmund) Menkes". Culture.pl. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  54. ^ Nurenberg, Amsheĭ (2010). Odessa — Parizh — Moskva. Vospominaniya khudozhnika [Odessa — Paris — Moscow. Memoirs of an artist] (in Russian). Moskva Jerusalim: Mosty kulʹtury Gesharim. ISBN 9785932732892. OCLC 635864735.
  55. ^ PJ Birnbaum (2016). "Chana Orloff: A modern Jewish woman sculptor of the School of Paris". Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. 15 (1, 2016): 65. doi:10.1080/14725886.2015.1120430. S2CID 151740210.
  56. ^ Õhtuleht Näitused 9 May 1998. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  57. ^ Robert Jenson, Why the School of Paris Is Not French, Purdue University, Artl@s Bulletin, 2013

Further reading

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  • Stanley Meisler (2015). Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • West, Shearer (1996). The Bullfinch Guide to Art. UK: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8212-2137-2.
  • Nieszawer, Nadine (2000). Peintres Juifs à Paris 1905-1939 (in French). Paris: Denoel. ISBN 978-2-207-25142-3.
  • Painters in Paris: 1895-1950, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2000
  • Paris in New York: French Jewish Artists in Private Collections, Jewish Museum, New York, 2000
  • Windows on the City: The School of Paris, 1900–1945, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 2016
  • The Circle of Montparnasse, Jewish Artists in Paris 1905-1945, From Eastern Europe to Paris and Beyond, exhibition catalogue Jewish Museum New York, 1985
  • Enriched by Otherness: Impact of the Ecole de Paris, written in French by Juliette Gaufreteau, Sorbonne University, translation by Lily Pouydebasque, University College of London. Article available on L'AiR Arts Association website.
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