Upon arrival at the Left Bank, cross quai Voltaire, turn left, go to rue
Bonaparte, then turn right.Soon we come
to No. 5, birthplace of Édouard Manet, a French painter who
chose everyday people as his subjects.I
think we covered him before.
After a while we find rue Visconti, where the artist Frédéric Bazille
had a studio at No. 20.I'd like to
say a little about Monsieur Bazille at this time.Ah, poor Frédéric!Another soul who wanted to paint, but had to study medicine for the
privilege.Bazille came to Paris in 1862
to continue his medical studies, when he met Renoir and Alfred Sisley.And then
Monet, Manet, and all the rest.The next
thing you know, he's an Impressionist.But, perhaps, more importantly, he generously shared the money he got
from home with his Impressionist friends, often supporting more than a few in
his studio.
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Frédéric joined a Zouave regiment in August 1870. Three months later, he and his unit were
engaged with the Germans when his officer was injured, so he took command and
led an assault on the enemy position. He was hit twice in the failed attack and
died on the battlefield at the age of twenty-eight.Here are two tributes I would like to share:
The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeeded.
Berthe Morisot to her sister Edma after visit to le Salon of 1869.
He did not die romantically, galloping over a Delacroix' battlefield...but stupidly, during the retreat, on a muddy road.Pierre-August Renoir
Frédéric
Continue all the way past rue Jacob, until you get to a
little park (square Laurent-Prache) on the left.The road to your right has been named rue
Guillaume Apollinaire, in honor of the famous poet.In the park, you can find a small head, made
by Picasso, placed there in memory of his friend.
I would like to tell you little about Monsieur Apollinaire whose
career, as shady as it was, turned out to be important in the history of
Art.Especially Cubism.
Let's start with his real name: Guglielmo
Alberto Wladimiro Alessandro Apollinaire da Kostrowitzky, who was born in Rome
in 1880.He was the first-born son of
Angelica da Kostrowitzky, a Polish woman with some claim to the nobility.His father is unknown.
Guillaume
Guillaume (which is French for 'Guglielmo') grew up in the casinos of Nice, Cannes, and Monte Carlo, where his mother worked under the name Olga de Kostrowitzky. The police had her registered as a "gallant woman," a title that identified her as more of a 'courtesan' than a prostitute. He failed his exams but, according to his mother, he read a lot. In 1899, she brought the family to Paris.
He got a job tutoring the child of an aristocratic widow and traveled extensively in this capacity. He found that he was now a poet and began publishing under the name 'Guillaume Apollinaire'. While continuing to write poems, Apollinaire penned stories about the artists Georges Braque and Henri Rousseau, thereby claiming the title of Art Critic. Since he had no education nor background in Art, we can only assume that his views were being shaped by M. Pablo Picasso.
There seemed to be countless periodicals streaming off of Paris' printing presses in those days, so there was plenty of opportunity to get something published, but it was not enough to support him. So, in 1908, Guillaume began writing pornography. Well, not exactly pornography, he was writing introductions and commentary for a series of erotic texts, La Bibliotheque des Curieux. I suppose it paid the bills.
Continue on rue Bonaparte to boulevard Saint-Germain. On the right corner is Les Deux Magots, once a favorite rendezvous of the literary and intellectual élite. (A 'magot,' by the way, refers to a stocky, Chinese figurine.) And this is where Pablo met Dora Maar.
Opened in 1873, it has attracted everyone from Albert Camus to Julia Child, including Simone de Beauvoir, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and a variety of Surrealist artists. The Deux Magots literary prize has been awarded to a French novel every year since 1933.
Walk one block up Saint-Germain to No. 172, Café de Flore, another of the oldest coffee houses opened in the 1880s. Like many of the others, this was another hangout for artists. Alberto and brother Diego Giacometti were here every night and said Pablo sat opposite the door among his friends. Others included Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai who was known to be a frequent patron during the 1920s. Before we cross the street, I would like to mention that one block further on Saint-Germaine, at the corner of rue des Saints-Peres, was theLaura Wylda Gallery, where Modi had a show in December, 1906.
Now, cross the boulevard and turn back one block to rue de Rennes. Turn right and walk until you pass place Saint-Sulpice, then bear left onto rue Cassette, and find No. 7.
Alfred
We have arrived at the home of one of Paris' most colorful and tragic characters, Alfred Jarry. This was a special residence in the hotel de Rocher de Bazancourt. You see the landlord created a petite flat, by subdividing an apartment horizontally, providing a room that Jarry could stand up in, while his guests had to bend or crouch. Those guests included, you guessed it, Picasso, Apollinaire, Salmon, and Jacobs.
For such a small man, he had a lot of wild eccentricities, like carrying a loaded gun while riding his bicycle around Paris. Or his pursuit of the "green goddess," absinthe. Jarry thought of it as "my sacred herb," and once painted his face green before riding his bicycle all around Paris. His staccato, nasal vocal delivery and precise figures of speech were mesmerizing. The wind was "That which blows" and the bicycle he rode all over Paris was "That which rolls."
Alfred wrote a play called Ubu Roi. It opened with King Ubu stepping forward and saying the word, "Merde!" and it was all downhill from there.
Ubu Roi
But since this is an Art tour, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about Alfred Jarry and another traveler from Laval, Henri Rousseau. As a matter of fact, Rousseau's and Jarry's fathers were classmates there. So, it is not surprising that Jarry saw Rousseau's painting at the Exposition des Artistes Independants in 1894. It was entitled War. If you are not familiar with this painting, take a moment to get a better look. It is quite remarkable.
War or The Ride of Discord byHenri Rousseau, 1894
Jarry was very impressed by Rousseau and wrote reviews for L’Art Litteraire and Essais d’art libre, and L’Ymagier. Alfred Jarry was the first person to seriously appreciate and promote Henri Rousseau and to bring his work to the attention of the public. It was he who nicknamed Rousseau “Le Douanier” even though he was not a customs officer. And Jarry continued to support and encourage the older man.
But soon Jarry was in dire circumstances himself and stayed with Rousseau for a short time at his apartment in Montparnasse. Alfred Jarry died on the first of November, 1907 of tuberculous meningitis. It was probably from riding his bicycle in the snow all over Paris. He was thirty-four. It was recorded that his last request was for a toothpick.
Continue on Cassette until it ends at rue des Fleurus. Turn left and find number 47, a little way down on the right. You can't see anything, but this is the entrance to Gertrude and brother Leo Stein's apartment. In the end, Picasso was unhappy with her portrait - you remember, we were tracing Gertrude's footsteps, sort of - even after "eighty or ninety" sessions and abandoned it. I give you two "poems" by Ms. Stein, which she recited at the banquet for Rousseau:
Chicken
A very dirty word. A very dirty third.
A very dirty third. A very dirty bird.
Picasso
If I told him would he like it
would he like it if I told him.
Would he like it if I told him
if I told him
would he like it. If I told him would Napoleon
would he like it if I told him...
Kind of makes you wonder. Keep going to the end of des Fleurus and you will run into Les Jardins du Luxembourg. While the largest structure there is the Palace, if you turn left after entering the park, you will eventually find the Musée du Luxembourg.
Musée du Luxembourg, 1848
Established in 1750, it was initially an art museum located in the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace. It was the first public painting gallery in Paris, displaying the King's collection which included nearly a hundred Old Master works now forming the nucleus of le Louvre. Then, in 1818, it became the first museum of 'contemporary art.'
In 1884, the museum moved into its current building, the former orangery of the Palace. Now, following it being taken over by the Government, they only have special exhibitions, so only go in if you like what is being offered. There are, however, sculptures all over the palace grounds. In addition to the older pieces, there are works by sculptors like Eduardo Chilida and Ossip Zadkine.
Exit the garden at the southwest corner, turn left onto avenue d'Assas, and find No. 100, Musée Ossip Zadkine. We discovered Zadkine for the first time when a woman told us about the village of Les Arques, in the southern tip of the Dordognes. She said that, as well as a restaurant, there was some sort of gallery or museum and nothing else. We drove down on a Monday and discovered that it was/is a museum and was, therefore, closed. But there were a few of Zadkine's sculptures outside the museum as well as inside the church across the way. We were so moved by what we saw, we had to go back to see what was inside and it was truly worth it.
Zadkine and his wife, artist Valentine Prax, bought the Les Arques place in 1934, while they had been living at 100 d'Assas since 1928. Ossip was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, but by age 15 he was in London and a few years later, Paris. He lived and worked in La Ruche, which we will talk about later, and became an integral part of the Avant-garde.
Ossip
In 1915 he volunteered as a stretcher-bearer in WWI until he was wounded in a gas attack at Champagne. Discharged in 1917.
It wasn't so simple for WWII. I had not mentioned that even though Ossip created spiritual pietas and Christs, his Jewish heritage made him a target and so he fled to the United States, leaving Valentine behind to protect their property.
Valentine
During this time, he associated with a group of European artists who mounted a show at Pierre Matisse's NYC gallery: Artists in Exile. Others in the show included: Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Fernand Léger, André Breton, and more. Yes, Pierre was Henri's boy.
After the war and he returned home, Ossip created his greatest masterpiece, Destroyed City. This was completed in 1950 for the people of Rotterdam, Netherlands, whose city was, indeed, destroyed during the war. This monumental work is about twenty feet tall and clearly reflects the horror of the citizens. The same year he was awarded the Grand Prix for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale.
Zadkine was a man filled with deep impulses and that is what made him so endearing and also so vulnerable. While he was working on the Van Gogh monument, he re-read to me a letter from the painter, and I saw the tears which came to his eyes at this reading. He quoted to me then, as though to excuse himself for this tenderness, the words of Stefan Zweig: 'If I were God, I would take pity on the hearts of men.' - Jean Bouret
The Musée Ossip Zadkine was established by Valentine Prax in 1982, and has subsequently grown to where it now contains about 300 sculptures, as well as drawings, gouaches, photographs, and tapestries. The artist's former home, studio and garden offer a wonderfully meditative experience.
Zadkine, Valentine, her parents, plus Fernande Barrey with husband Foujita.
Here is a list of some Zadkine sculptures around the city:
Allée Georges Besse on Blvd Edgar Quinet (La Naissance des Formes)
Pont d’Invalides (The Messenger)
Place d’Italie (The Return of the Prodigal Son) in front of City Hall
Jardin du Luxembourg (Le poete ou Hommage a Paul Éluard)
Zadkine grave in Cimetière Montparnasse, (last row)
Musée Modern Paris at Palais de Tokyo
Musée
Modern at Centre Pompidou
Return of the Prodigal Son by Ossip Zadkine, 1964
Continue walking on the avenue d'Assas. On the right you will see rue Joseph Bara. At No. 3, we find the rooms of Jules Pascin, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, and Moïse Kisling, who lived here for twenty-seven years, among others. Oh, if the walls could only speak!
Léopold Zborowski in front of Soutine's door, Moïse at work embellished by Modi.
Moïse had some interesting visitors, one day in 1912, when the Perlmutter Sisters were in town and looking for work as models.Bronia was sixteen and Tylia was fourteen.
Bronia and Tylia
All
being Polish, Bronia soon served as hostess for Moïse's Wednesday luncheon
salons.Moïse then recommended the
sisters to Nils Dardel, since he figured they would be safe with him.Tylia was actually Nils' first nude.She was also in demand by others like
Berenice Abbot and Marie Laurencin.There was once a show at the galerie Marseilles that was all
Jean-Louis Boussingault paintings of Tylia.
Tylia and Marie
Bronia also modeled clothes for designer Paul Poiret and his sister, Nicole Groult. Part of her job was to wear their elegant creations to the theatre and clubs. It was at the afternoon tea dances at Le Boeuf su le Toit, that Raymond Radiguet (who wrote about his relationship with Nils and Thora Dardel) met Bronia. And they fell in love.
Raymond and Jean
But Jean Cocteau, who was in a relationship with Raymond, took him away that summer. When they returned, Raymond announced that he would marry Bronia. But before that could happen, Raymond was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died on December 12, 1923 at age twenty.
No. 3 Joseph Bara
The building belonged to Léopold Zborowski, another important figure who is credited with discovering Soutine, promoting Modigliani, and supporting whomever he could. Modigliani produced paintings for Zborowski in exchange for fifteen francs per day. And when the German Howitzer they called "Big Bertha" was close enough to target the city, he paid to have his coterie of artists go to Nice until things calmed down.
Léopold and friends at La Rotonde
Académie Le Palette, of which we have spoken, moved to Joseph Bara, but I don't have a street number. No. 7 was the site of the Académie Ranson. But before I can tell you about this school, we must have a discussion about Les Nabis. Are you familiar with this group? Now, that was an interesting band of artists.
It all began in the summer of 1888, when Paul Sérusier visited Pont-Aven, a wonderful art colony near the Brittany coast. There he met and painted with Paul Gauguin, who taught him to look at painting in a new way:
Paul Gauguin
"How do you see these trees?" he said, "They are yellow. So, put in yellow; this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? Put in vermilion.”
Paul Sérusier
Gauguin was suggesting that he exaggerate the impression. The result paved the way toward abstraction. Under Gauguin's supervision, Sérusier painted a landscape on a cigar box lid.
The Talisman by Paul Sérusier, 1888
Back in Paris, Paul told his friends what he learned, and it had a major impact on them all. They formed a group and called themselves, Les Nabis, and the little painting on the cigar-box lid became known as the “Talisman.” The name, Les Nabis, comes from both the Hebrew and the Arabic for "The Prophets." Each member was assigned a special title, and they developed a private vocabulary of their own. You see, they were a group of clever fellows.
At first they met at the Café L'Os à Moëlle, in the passage Brady. Beside Paul, there was Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Pierre Bonnard, and Maurice Denis. When Paul-Élie Ranson became one of them, they moved to his studio above the Ransons' apartment at 25 boulevard du Montparnasse. They were soon joined by others.
They were a rebellious group of mostly student artists at the Académie Julian. But they would exert a profound influence on the movements that followed: Fauvism, Cubism and Abstraction.
Ranson's studio became "le temple," and each of the initiates received a special name:
Sérusier was called le nabi a la barbe rutilante (for his brilliant beard); Pierre Bonnard, le nabi très japonard (due to his being influenced by Japanese art); Paul- Élie Ranson, le nabi plus japonard que le nabi japonard; Édouard Vuillard, le nabi zouave; Félix Valloton, le nabi étranger; George Lacomb, le nabis sculpteur; and Maurice Denis, le nabi aux belles icônes. Ranson’s wife, Marie-France, was la Lumière du Temple. Meetings began with ritual chanting, followed by strange phrases and gestures.
Paul
“Sounds, colors, and words have a miraculously expressive power beyond all representation and even beyond the literal meaning of the words,” intoned the presiding Nabi, as he raised his staff.
The initiates wore long white tunics decorated in an oriental style, as they chanted in response. They believed that the most important function of art was to provide a sense of unity or continuity. Their credo was "the simplification of form and the exaltation of color." Their goal: To revitalize art. They preached that a work of art is the end product and the visual expression of an artist's synthesis of nature in personal aesthetic metaphors and symbols.
Homage to Cézanne by Maurice Denis, 1900
Whomever wrote the following for WikiMedia, did such a great job describing this painting, I would like to quote it here:
"This painting rings out like a manifesto. Maurice Denis has assembled a group of friends, artists and critics, in the shop of the art dealer, Ambroise Vollard, to celebrate Paul Cézanne, who is represented by the still life on the easel.
This painting, Fruit Bowl, Glass and Apples had belonged to Paul Gauguin, who is also evoked among the tutelary examples to whom Denis is paying homage. Effectively, a painting by Gauguin and another by Renoir can be made out in the background. Odilon Redon is also given pride of place: he is shown in the foreground on the far left and most of the figures are looking at him. He is listening to Paul Sérusier who is standing in front of him.
From left to right, we can recognize Édouard Vuillard, the critic André Mellerio in a top hat, Vollard behind the easel, Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Pierre Bonnard smoking a pipe, and lastly Marthe Denis, the painter's young wife. Part of the Nabi generation is gathered here in a composition which follows on from the homage paid by Fantin-Latour in several paintings, especially A Studio at Les Batignolles in the Musée d'Orsay."
When Maurice exhibited this work in Paris and Brussels in 1901, reactions were sometimes hostile. In his diary, the artist referred to it as "that painting, which still makes the public laugh". His friend, the writer André Gide, immediately offered to buy it. Maurice did not part with it, however, until 1928 when he gave it to the Musée du Luxembourg.
Maurice with Marthe and daughter, Bernadette, c 1912
Académie Ranson was founded by the Ransons in 1908. When Paul-Élie died less than a year later of tuberculosis, Marie-France continued to run it until 1931. At first it was based on rue Henri-Monnier in the 9th arrondissement, but since their apartment was on boulevard Montparnasse, it was moved here. With their fellow Nabis as instructors and Concetta, an American who posed for Degas and for Rodin's The Kiss, as well as being a sculptor herself, the school did fairly well. Among the students were Maria Viera da Silva and Roger de La Fresnaye.
Concetta Scaravaglione
Académie Ranson
Across d'Assas from Bara is rue Michelet. Take this street into the Jardin des Grand Explorateurs to the other side. Turn left and then take a right onto rue Herschel. Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his wife, American artist Augusta Fisher Homer (third cousin to Winslow), stayed at No. 3. I'm not sure when, because they occupied a great number of addresses in the area. In 1889, Saint-Gaudens spent two weeks staying with Fred MacMonnies, at No. 44 rue de Sèvres. Fred was formerly Saint-Gaudens' studio assistant. Here is a sculptors' tale.
Christopher Columbus by Mary Lawrence, 1893
Following the end of Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Mary Lawrence served as an assistant to Saint-Gaudens in New York, before moving to Paris, where she studied at the Académie Julian. She met young François Tonetti at a ball given by American artist Charles Dana Gibson. François has been described as dark, muscular, passionate, and temperamental. But with great charm. He was the assistant to Fred MacMonnies. When Mary returned to New York, François convinced MacMonnies to send him to New York to assist with the completion of sculptures for the Brooklyn Memorial Arch on Grand Army Plaza. When Saint-Gaudens moved to Paris, Mary took over his classes in NYC at the Art Students League.
Mary and Augustus with students at ASL.
Fred and students
Mary and François were married in 1900 in New York City. When Saint-Gaudens learned of the engagement he lamented, “Mary Lawrence is going to marry Tonetti, half Italian, half French faun who was Mac's assistant for many years. He is a regular picnic feller and she is a regular picnic girl and I suppose there will be lots of festive children." You see, Saint-Gaudens did not much care for MacMonnies' work.
By way of making a point about all the marriages between artists, Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low studied at the St. Louis Art School (where she won a three years' scholarship), before coming to Paris to continue at the Académie Julian. Mary had her own studio at 11 Impasse du Maine, (now part of Musée Bourdelle), while she married Fred in 1888 and divorced him in 1909.
And to make just one more point, that while Saint-Gaudens and his wife were in Paris, his mistress Davida was giving birth to a son back in Connecticut. Born Albertina Hultgren in a village in
Sweden before going to America, Albertina became a model for the great
Saint-Gaudens. He renamed her Davida, as
she posed for many of his famous sculptures. She was the model for the head of
his Diana, who graced the top of Madison Square Garden.They fell in love and he gave his new
family the last name of Clark, but kept them a secret.
Davida and Novy at home in Connecticut.
Turn around now and go back to avenue d'Observatoire, then turn left.
A former employee of the Bal de la Grande Chaumière, François Bullier bought the old Prado d'Ete in 1843 at 31 avenue de l'Observatoire (now avenue Georges Bernanos). He then transformed it completely by planting 1000 feet of lilacs and gave it the name of Closerie des Lilas. Later it would become known as Bal du Bullier.
You can see where it used to be.
American artist William Glackens, who was in Paris in 1912 on an Art buying spree for his old high school chum, Alfred Barnes, had this to say:
Yesterday
was Mardi Gras at the Bal Bullier. Bare legs to the hips seemed to be
the favorite costume among the girls. One of them was also bare-footed.
In the early 1860's this was the meeting place for radical painters
including Bazille, Renoir, Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro. Other irregulars
include Émile Zola, Paul Cézanne, Theophile Gautier, and Charles
Baudelaire. And there was one couple who always stood out from the
crowd.
Le Bal Bullier by Sonja Delaunay, 1912-13
She began life as Sarah Stern, born in a Ukraine village, then becoming Sonja Terk when she was sent to St. Petersburg at age five. Sonja spoke three languages, and when she was fourteen the German Impressionist Max Lieberman gave her paints and brushes.
Sonja
He was always Robert-Victor-Félix Delaunay, born into the Parisian aristocracy, and took up painting at an early age. Robert began in a Neo-Impressionistic style and lived with his mother, Countess Berthe Félicie de Rose. After a hitch in the army (as a regimental librarian) he met the Cubists in 1908.
Robert
Sonja was twenty when she came to Paris and studied at the Académie de la Palette. Charming, talented and multilingual, Terk got her first solo show in 1908. Then she married the show’s promoter, Wilhelm Uhde. Through Uhde she met Picasso, Braque, and Robert Delaunay. Sonja divorced Wilhelm (it was a marriage of convenience anyway).
Sonja on right.
Robert began to paint studies of Paris and the Eiffel Tower, then met Sonja and married her in 1910 as soon as she was divorced. Less than a year later, they welcomed son, Charles, into the world. They held a salon at their apartment on Sunday nights. They were also the creators of Orphism, as Apollinaire insisted on calling their new style. They used the term Simultaneity. Influenced by Fauvism, it was an important step along the way from Cubism to Abstract Art. And while Robert got a lot of attention with a solo show in Paris and an invitation to participate in the exhibition presented by the editors of Der Blaue Reiter almanac (Kandinsky and Marc) in Munich, Sonja was making a name in the worlds of fashion and textiles.
La Ville de Paris by Robert Delaunay, 1911
She designed colorful fabrics, tapestries and carpets, working with Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin. Then she opened her own design house and had many famous clients. She even 'dressed' a Citroen B12. The 1925 cover for British Vogue featured Sonja’s 'Simultaneous' dress, next to a 'Simultaneous' car.
The couple themselves were really a living work of art, dressed in clothes specially designed by Sonja; with the simultaneous contrast of warm and cold complementary colors, and visual effects, created the impression of movement to the eye. Robert, for example, would wear a red coat with a blue collar, red socks, yellow and black shoes, black pants, green jacket with azure waistcoat and a little red tie. While Sonja's dress was in different shades of rose, scarlet, yellow orange and dark blue. Added to this was a violet-green belt.
Robert
Stricken with cancer, Robert died on October 25, 1941. Sonja continued to paint, design, and receive awards and honors. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre, in 1964, and 1975 was named an officer of the French Legion of Honor. Sonja died on December 5, 1979 in Paris.
Head toward boulevard du Montparnasse, but stop at rue Notre Dame des Champs, over on the right. Rather than make you walk up and down this street for an extra mile or so, I'll just tell you what was going on here.
There is a bit of a gap before you get to No. 117, home of the sculptor Camille Claudel, whom we will meet a little later.
115 Studio of Giorgio de Chirico.
113 Hemingway stayed here from 1924 to 1926.
86 James McNeill Whistler had a studio here, as did Fernand Léger, 1916-1956.
James
Fernand
81 Emile Othon-Friesz had his studio here and lived in it from 1914 to 1949.
75 William Bouguereau, who opposed Manet and the Impressionists, lived here.
73 John Singer Sargent lived here for a while.
John
70 bis is where Ezra Pound stayed from 1921 to 1946.
70 Ossip Zadkine decided to open a school here.
57 Paul Cézanne lived here, among many others.
56 Paul Baudrey, painter of female nudes, lived here.
Now we can proceed up to boulevard du Montparnasse and the café on the corner. In 1903, the name Closerie des Lilas was transferred to this former bank building on the corner of Observatoire and boulevard du Montparnasse, as it is to this day. In the early twentieth century, the writer Paul Fort held court and played chess with Vladimir Lenin while kibitzing with Guillaume Apollinaire or Alfred Jarry. Then it was Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Henry Miller. It was on the terrace of La Closerie that Hemingway read Fitzgerald's manuscript of Gatsby the Magnificent.
Others who stopped by included: Modigliani, Breton, Kees, Pablo, Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Gide, Paul Éluard, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Man Ray, and Ezra Pound. The scene has been painted by German painter Ida Gerhardi, American painters Maurice Prendergast, William Glackens, Alfie Maurer, and so many more.
Ernest and F. Scott
Continue down d'Observatoire and cross over boulevard du Montparnasse. Turn right and go for two blocks, then turn left on rue Campagne Première. Another street filled with art history:
3 Sculptor François Pompon was here from 1877 to his death in 1933. Modigliani spent time here, as well.
Also location of Chez Rosalie restaurant, owned by Rosalie Tobia, former model of Odilon Redon , William Bouguereau and Modigliani.
Rosalie at work.
Painter Boris Taslitzky had his workshop here.
Painter Hanns Bolz was established here in 1909 and 1910.
English painter Thomas William Marshall had his studio here in 1904.
5 Home of painter Edmond-Marie Poullain in 1905.
9 There was a complex of about one hundred studios at this address. Giorgio de Chirico lived here from October 1913-October 1915. Painter Foujita was here until 1917.
13bis The poet Rainer Maria Rilke lived here.
14 Home of Yves Klein.
17 Home of artist Georges Gimel in 1919, painter/engraver Stanley William Hayter from 1933 to 1939, and an engraving workshop frequented by many artists from around the world. Numerous other artists have called this home.
17 bis and No. 19: Residence of photographer Eugène Atget from 1898 to 1927.
23 Studio for Joan Mitchell in 1989. Also workshop for Foujita.
Foujita
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita was the son of a general in the Imperial Japanese Army. He
studied Art and was decorated in Tokyo before moving to Montparnasse in 1913.In time he was associating with the
usual suspects, in particular Modi.
29 Hotel Istria hosted Duchamp, Moïse, Francis Picabia, Kiki, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tristan Tzara, Eric Satie and Man Ray, among others, such as Josephine Baker.
Josephine
Marcel Duchamp was staying at No. 29, on January 1, 1924 when he wrote to Ettie Stetheimer:
I was living in a frightfully cold studio which I have forsaken for a small but very comfortable hotel.
It is also an excuse for a Duchamp story. The earthquake of 1906, convinced Beatrice Wood and her family to leave San Francisco and move to New
York. There, despite her parents' strong opposition,
Beatrice pursued a career in the arts. Next stop, Paris, where she studied acting at
the Comédie-Française and Art at the Académie Julian.
Beatrice
At the beginning of WWI, she returned to New York, where
she continued acting with a French Repertory Company. It was there that she met Marcel Duchamp, who introduced her to Henri-Pierre Roché,
with whom she developed a relationship.
Constantin Brâncuși, Henri-Pierre Roché, and Éric Satie
Marcel had risen to fame in the United States with his Nude
Descending a Staircase, that caused such a stir at the Armory Show. Henri-Pierre spent time at the Académie Julian, but was passing as a diplomat
and journalist, in New York. Two men
with no morality and little regard for others, as long as they could do as they
pleased.
"Marcel shocked me because he said that sex and love are two different
things." Yet, Beatrice had sex with him because she felt they should become,
“as close physically as they were emotionally,” even though she claimed to be a
“monogamous woman in a polygamous world."
The
three worked together to create The Blind Man, a Dadaist publication, which Marcel
planned to use to defend his submission of a urinal to the first exhibition of
the Society of Independent Artists in April 1917.
Of course, there is more
than enough evidence to explain that the submission came from the Dadaist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (who
claimed credit), and
that Marcel planned this as a publicity stunt. The story of how they purchased
the urinal was all very tight and often repeated verbatim by his associates
Walter Arensberg and Man Ray, whom Marcel met for the first time.Do not forget that Marcel was on the board of
directors of the association, and was well aware that a sniff of scandal does
wonders for attendance.William
Glackens' son, Ira, said that Glackens, who was president of the association,
picked up the urinal and smashed it to bits before rejecting it.
Though Beatrice was mostly involved with Henri-Pierre, they spent a lot of time
with Marcel, creating a kind of love triangle. Many years later, Henri-Pierre published his
first novel, Jules et Jim, which was inspired by the triangle among
himself, Helen Grund, and the German writer Franz Hessl.
Franz and Henri-Pierre
Amid his papers,
after he died, was an unfinished manuscript for a second entitled, Victor.
'Victor' was the name Marcel's intimates
used for him, and the contents probably referred to Henry-Pierre's relationship
with Beatrice and Marcel.
Beatrice
31 Apartment of the painter Otto von Wätjen, from 1912 to 1914, before he married Marie Laurencin, after she broke up with Apollinaire. Also, workshop of painters Chaim Soutine and Zanaida Serebriakova, though not at the same time.
Zinaida - photo and self-portrait
31bis Home of Man Ray, critic Pierre Restany, and sculptor Jean-Pierre Raynaud. Architect André Arfvidson designed this building in 1910, with large windows and an enameled stoneware facade by Alexandre Bigot. Also workshop of the sculptor César, and the writer/painter Yuri Annenkof.
31-31bis rueCampagne Première
At the far end we cross boulevard Raspail to the other side and look for 242. This where Picasso moved with mistress, Eva Gouel (aka Marcelle Humbert), after breaking up with Fernande Olivier in 1912. With your back to the apartment, turn left and walk up Raspail. Pass by Square Yves Klein, in honor of the important French post-war painter.
Yves at work.
Then walk past boulevard Edgar Guinet to 229 boulevard Raspail, home of Baroness Hélène d'Oettingen. Not only a painter in le Salon, under the pseudonym of "Francois Angiboult," the Baroness also wrote poetry as "Léonard Pieu," and was a novelist known as "Roch Gray."
Hélène
Following her divorce almost a year after marriage with the Tsarist officer who furnished her with the title, Hélène, and her cousin Serge Férat, who was also a painter, came to Paris in 1902. She studied at Académie Julian, but her greatest contributions were what she did with the money coming to her from Russia. After settling in here at 229, not only did she institute her own salon, but destitute artists, be it Max Jacob, Modigliani, or Léopold Survage, were welcomed to their home to take their meals and to get warm.
She not only supplied the capital for Apollinaire's literary review Les Soirées de Paris, her salons brought together "those who have or will have a name in painting, poetry and music Modern." And before the Russian Revolution caused their income to dwindle, she and Férat bought nine canvases and five drawings from Henri Rousseau. The money from this sale lasted him until his death.
There has been speculation that the young woman lying naked in the jungle of Rousseau's The Dream was actually Hélène. The resemblance to photographs is "disturbing," some say. The distant gaze, the fleshy lips and the dark hair of the dryad in the painting were said to be eerily similar.
The Baroness
The Dream
Henri finishing up.
She left boulevard Raspail in 1935 and died of leukemia in 1950. According to Fernande Olivier:
She would arrive dressed in ermine and gold.
Walk back to Edgar Guinet and turn right, but as soon as you turn, cross over to the median. There we find a sculpture by Ossip Zadkine, La Naissance des Formes, 1958.
Keep going now until you see the gate to the Cimitère Montparnasse on the left. Go in, grab a map, and start exploring.
Second only in size to Père Lachaise, it is every bit its equal in terms of sculpture and decorations. Though we searched, we could not find the grave of Chaim Soutine, but were more successful with others. There was the grave of Tatiana Rachewskaia, a young Russian anarchist who committed suicide in 1910 after an unhappy love affair. Her parents commissioned Constantin Brâncuşi to carve her headstone, and he was moved to create this statue of two lovers, The Kiss.
In addition to an array of international memorials, there are tombs of painters (Soutine, Latour), sculptors (Zadkine, Henri Laurens, Houdon, Brâncuşi, Bourdelle), and entertainers of all kinds. There were cartoonists, printers, musicians (Saint-Saëns, Rampal, Franck) as well as generals and political figures (Dreyfus). We didn’t look for the famous like Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir (same grave), Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant, Samuel Beckett, Susan Sontag, and Jean Seberg, but found Man Ray and his wife Juliette. Here is a monument Niki de Saint-Phalle made for her assistant, Ricardo Menon.
Exit the cemetery the way you went in, then go left on Edgar Guinet to rue Delambre and take a hard right. There is a bit to see here, so hold on.
35 Former Hôtel des Ecoles, now Hôtel Delambre, where Paul Gauguin stayed in 1891. André Breton, founder of Surrealism, who had just given up his medical studies, stayed here from October 1920 to 1921, and Francis Bacon in 1927.
33 Hôtel des Bains, where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre settled in the spring of 1937.
22 The Breton Mission has nothing to do with André Breton. It is an association welcoming and helping Bretons (people from Brittany) arriving in Paris. While a Mecca of Breton culture in Paris, it still has nothing to do with Surrealists.
15 Grand Hotel des Ecoles hosted Jules Pascin in 1905 and Tristan Tzara, founder of the Dada movement, in 1921. Since it has become the Lenox Hotel, Henry Miller and his wife, June, stayed from 1928 to 1930. Man Ray had room 37.
13 Hotel Villa Modigliani, where the current car park was the site of Man Ray's workshop.
11a The Rosebud Bar, frequented by Jean-Paul Sartre.
10 The Dingo Bar (from the French slang for 'crazy', now Venice Hostel, was a rallying point for the American authors of the Lost Generation. Ernest Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald here in April 1925. Also a hangout for: Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, and Thornton Wilder.
9 Helena Rubinstein built the workshop buildings here. And Isadora Duncan moved here in 1926, when she was no longer the star she once was. It was just one year later, that she broke her neck when her scarf caught in the wheels of her car. In 1937, photographer Erwin Blumenfeld opened a photo studio here.
Isadora and the Isadorables.
5 Foujita stayed here in the apartment of his wife Fernande Barrey. Fernande
came from the Picardy region to Paris around 1908.Initially working as a prostitute, she later posed
for Jean Agélou, Modigliani and Soutine.
Fernande by Jean Agélou
Then one day in
March in the Café La Rotonde, she met Foujita and it was love at first sight.
They married two weeks later. At some
point they drifted into an open marriage, but when Fernande had an affair with
his cousin Koyanagi, it was over. They divorced in 1928.
Foujita and Lucie
After several
mistresses, including Kiki, Foujita met and married the Belgian artist, Lucie Badoud, whom
he called "Youki." In 1930, the surrealist writer and friend Robert Desnos lived
with the couple. There was a triangle for a while, before they separated. Then
he married the model Madeleine Lequeux.
Foujita painting Madeleine
And now we're at the messy intersection of boulevard Raspail and boulevard du Montparnasse, as well as Delambre. Walk straight across the intersection and go down rue de la Grande Chaumière.
Rue de la Grande Chaumière was a happening place in Montparnasse's heyday. The street was named for Le Bal de la Grande Chaumière (Great Thatched Hut), a dance-hall that was located nearby on a site that corresponds with Nos. 112 to 136 of boulevard du Montparnasse.
Here is a description offered by Émile de La Bédollière in 1860:
Let's give one more regret to Le Bal de la Grande Chaumière, destroyed after sixty years of existence. It was founded in 1788 by an Englishman, named Tinkson, where people danced in the open air in an enclosure surrounded by huts where refreshments were made. A Sieur Fillard joined Tinkson, and substituted the thatched closets for a two-story building.
It was a huge garden planted with tall trees. About the center of the garden was a sandy space for the orchestra and the dancers. It closed in 1853, when supplanted by Le Closerie des Lilas. Here are some of the famous residents of the street:
8 Paul Gauguin lodged here from 1893 to 1894. It was also the workshop and lodging of Amedeo Modigliani and his companion Jeanne Hébuterne.
Jeanne
Hébuterne was still a teenager who led a sheltered life, when she met Modigliani at the Académie Colarossi. He was thirty-three. And for a while their relationship seemed to steady him. They had a child and he was getting income from Zborowski (who also paid the rent on No. 8). But his disease, alcoholism, and addictions to opium and other drugs, were well advanced, and he came to treat Jeanne abusively. He alternately ridiculed and ignored her, and slept with other women. He promised to marry her but never did.
His health worsened until he was found unconscious and taken to the hospital. There he asked Jeanne to follow him to the grave "so that I can have my favorite model in Paradise, and with her enjoy eternal happiness." He died on January 24, 1918, of tubercular meningitis.
Jeanne spent that night at a small hotel with Zborowski's assistant, Paulette Jourdain. In the morning, the maid found a knife under Jeanne’s pillow. Following Modi's internment there were arguments at her parents' house. So that night, Jeanne's brother slept in her bedroom. But in the night, she jumped from the fifth floor window to her death. She was eight months pregnant.
Paulette
10 Académie Colarossi was founded by Filippo Colarossi, first on the Île de la Cité, moving to this location in 1871. In addition to welcoming women to paint from live male nudes, the progressive Académie appointed New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins as its first female teacher.
Rodin also taught here. Some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century spent time there: Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz, Modigliani, Rodin, Maurice Prendergast, Canadian Emily Carr, Mucha, Steinlin, Gauguin, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Demuth, and Mahouri Young. Did you know that he was both Brigham Young's grandson and J. Alden Weir's son-in-law?
Louise Bourgeois at Académie Colarossi
13 Alfons Mucha lived here from 1896 to 1898.
14 Academy founded here by Antoine Bourdelle.
Antoine and class
Before moving on, I would like to relate a story that takes us to Académie Colarossi. Edvard Munch painted a picture in 1891 called Kristiania Bohêmem. It looks back on a group of people in Kristiania, now called Oslo, with whom Edvard associated. A collection of passionate, free-thinking social advocates continuing the Bohemians versus Bourgeois saga. Ringleader Hans Jaeger believed that free love would eliminate the need for prostitutes. And if that didn't do the trick they should pay women more for doing other jobs, so they would not be forced into his alternative when their families were starving. He had many odd ideas. The membership of the group consisted of lawyers, doctors, businessmen, a few artists, and lots of writers.
Kristiania-Bohêmen byEdvard Munch, 1891
The people in the painting are, Christian Krohg, painter of renown; Jørgen Englehardt, businessman and first husband of Oda Lasson (with hands on hips); Hans Jæger, writer kneeling before Oda; Gunnar Heiberg, son of a judge; and Jappe Nilssen, a playwright. Munch even included himself (on the right), though he is the one man in the picture not have had a physical relationship with Oda.
They believed in "Naturalism," which demands that
an author write and a painter paint about their personal life-experience.They also believed in socialism with a bit of
anarchism, and were against a great many things the Establishment held dear.The group met daily at the Grand Café, on
Karl-Johans Street, where the playwright Henrik Ibsen also had a regular table.
Krohg
As a young man Christian Krohg was sent to Germany to study Law, but became a painter instead. He was a painter of social realism, which I hope is self-explanatory. Upon his return to Norway, he fell in with a group of Leftists. One friend, artist Frits Thaulow, had a little boat and so they were able to spend summers in Skagen, Denmark, with the Danish Impressionists, who called him the "painter of snow."
Frits
Following six months in Paris, Krohg returned to rent a
place on Karl-Johans Street, opposite the Parliament.He was joined there by Frits
and another artist, Erik Werenskiold. They were already considered the young
Turks of Kristiania's art scene.The
building was called the Pultosten or Cream Cheese,
because the facade's Gothic-Moorish design featured white swirls.Krohg began offering life-drawing classes for
women, as they were not allowed in the Royal Academy.One of his students was Oda Lasson.
Oda
Daughter of the public prosecutor and granddaughter of a
Russian princess, Oda was already a wild-child when she joined the Kristiania
Bohemians, one of the very few women. Hans called her "La vraie
princesse de la Bohème", the true Princess of the Bohemians.
Not long after her mother died in 1881, Oda married
businessman Jørgen Engelhardt (see top painting),
to whom she had already been engaged.They had two children, but when he went bankrupt the following year, she
left, though Jørgen denied her request for a divorce.
Oda by Krohg
Jørgen again refused to release her, and beat her instead. In order to escape the scandal, Oda and Krohg went to Antwerp for the birth of the the daughter they called 'Nana," Krohg being a fan of Zola.
Pultosten
Edvard rented a space in the Pulotsen building in 1882. Krohg, who was already impressed with Edvard's skill, offered to critique his work free of charge. Hans Jæger also had a room at Pultosten. Hans was a writer and a thinker. Some even call him the "father of existentialism." At age sixteen, he ran away to sea, landing in Plymouth, England, where he lost his virginity and got syphilis. Untreated, he was impotent by age twenty-two, but still able to spread the disease. Much of his anger, it appears, was fueled by an unfavorable review of a paper he wrote for a philosophy class. His response was:
I shall not rest until I have corrupted my entire generation, or driven them to suicide.
Hans
Oda must have been attracted to his passion, because she began an affair. But then Hans could claim his first victim, when disciple Johann Seckman Fleischer killed himself on April 14, 1884. Johann had gone to Hans with a play he wrote and declared he was going to be a writer. Hans savaged it, Fleischer was devastated.
Edvard
Edvard was in Paris for three weeks in May of 1885, staying at 32 bis rue de Lavalle. He noted that:
Life here is quite different. You hardly ever see a dog on a lead; you come across little wagons being pulled along by dogs that are often so small that you can't imagine how on earth they manage to shift such enormous weights. You see shepherdesses in the middle of the street herding goats and sometimes playing their flutes.
That summer after returning to Kristiania, Edvard met the married Milly Thaulow on a boat in a fjord, and began an affair. She was actually a distant cousin of his; as well as wife of Carl, a captain in the medical corps; and sister-in-law to Frits.
Kristiania-Bohêmen by Edvard
The confiscation of Fra Kristiania-Bohêmen
sparked a debate on freedom of press in 1886 in the literary, cultural and
political papers. The group at the Grand Café took its name from the novel.Hans was tried in April of 1886 on charges of
blasphemy, and violation of modesty and morality, found guilty, and sentenced to
eighty days imprisonment with a fine of eighty kroner.An appeal kept him out of jail until
September when his case was heard in a higher court.Hans and Edvard spent the summer on the
southern shores near Arendal.In October, Edvard and Oda exhibited at the
first Autumn Salon in Kristiania.Oda
showed Japanese Lantern while Edvard displayed The Sick Child.
Krohg paintings in the Grand Café.
Three evenings after
the opening, Edvard, Krohg, and Hans shared drinks and cigars in the Grand Café,
as Hans was to begin serving his jail time the next day.And they drank quite a bit in those days.
Krohg liked absinthe, while Hans was never without a whiskey & soda.Edvard said that "we used to have drinks
before breakfast just to sober up; later we drank to get back into a
stupor."
Edvard
I sometimes
feel so weak that I have to drag myself through the streets.The day before yesterday I had to go to bed
at eight o'clock and I slept through to the next morning at eleven and even
then I woke up tired.The entire time
I've had a disgusting feeling of indifference toward everything…I've been
sitting in the Grand Café and I've barely been able to think and I have felt as
if I were going mad…Can I get rid of the worm that is gnawing at the roots of
my heart?
Edvard began paying for meals with paintings, while the alcohol made him look thin and ill. Even Hans told him he looked awful. Hans was in jail when the first edition of Impressionism which translates to "Impressions," was printed on December 1886. Krohg, who got the idea in Paris, started the magazine and Hans was the most important contributor. This was followed by Krohg's Albertine release on December 20th. The novel describes the tragic fate of a poor girl who ends up as a prostitute in Kristitania. It was immediately confiscated. One month later, five thousand people took to the street carrying signs that said "Free Albertine!"
On March 10, 1887, Krohg was found guilty and fined one hundred kroner, no jail time. The next day Krohg's painting, Albertine in the Police Doctor's Waiting Room went on display in a working class neighborhood of Kristiania. In the picture, Albertine is waiting to see the police doctor, who will examine her for sexually transmitted diseases.
Undiscovered copies of Fra Kristiania-Bohêmen were renamed Hans Jæger's Christmas Tales and sent to Stockholm for sale. But the plan was quickly undone on June 20, 1887, when those books were taken and Hans was given another one hundred and fifty days in jail. The affair of Oda and Hans reached its peak during the trials.
Oda
With Hans'
imminent release from jail, Odafinally got her divorce
from Jørgenon
September 28th. Then Oda and Krohg were quickly married a week later in Kristiania,
before leaving immediately for a honeymoon in Skagen, accompanied by leading
Danish Impressionist, Peder Krøyer.On this occasion the newlyweds were feted in
the Brøndums' dining room
with all the Skagen artists. Anna Ancher
presented Oda with a bouquet of red roses, followed by speeches and champagne.
Brøndums' dining room.
In April and May of 1889, Edvard displayed his art at the Student Society in
Kristiania.His first solo show.The summer was spent at Åsgårdstrand, but in the fall he was
back in Paris. He studied with Léon Bonnat, and visited the Exhibition
Universelle, as well as the Salon des Automne. Also in Åsgårdstrand, that summer,Per Krohg was welcomed to the world on June
18th. Oda had been born there as well, twenty-nine
years earlier. Edvard was named Per's godfather.
Edvard
Krohg and Oda went to Belgium in the spring of 1890 to reclaim their now six-year-old daughter from the foster parents. Then they took her and Per to Norway, where Oda's other two children were living. Oda tried to be a good mother to all her kids, but the following year she was off to Paris with Hans. There she met the much younger Jappe Nilssen and began an affair with him, as well. Jappe was ten years younger than Oda, when they were together in the summer of 1891.
Oda and Jappe
When Krohg wrote that Per was ill, Oda
returned, with Jappe jealously following.She ended it then and, with her husband, traveled to Berlin where Edvard
was staying.Jappe naturally
wrote his first novel, Nemesis, which describes a young
writer who has an unhappy love affair with a married woman ten years older than
him.
Edvard
Edvard was invited in 1892 to exhibit in Berlin, where his Art was greeted with such outrage that they closed the show after just a few days. But, thanks to this outrageous behavior, Edvard was a star among the local avant-gard, so he decided to stay a while.
In Berlin, he ran into a friend from Kristiania who was in the city studying music. He brought Dagby Juel to the Zum Schwarzen Ferkel, described by Finnish writer, Adolf Paul in March of 1893:
Dagny
One day she stepped into the 'Black Piglet' at Munch's side - blonde, slender, elegant, and dressed with a sense of refinement that understood how to hint at the body's sensuous movement but simultaneously avoid revealing too definite contours...A classic, pure profile, her face overshadowed by a profusion of curls!...A laugh that inspired longing for kisses, simultaneously revealing two rows of pearl-like white teeth awaiting the opportunity to attach themselves! And in addition, a primeval, affected sleepiness in her movements, never excluding the possibility of a lightening attack.
They nicknamed her Aspasia (lover of classic Greek statesman, Pericles) and Dagny was soon the lover of several of the circle, including Edvard and August Strindberg.
August
Strindberg considered Oda to be immoral and accused her
of having made Krohg her slave.One night he became provoked
when Oda tuned his guitar in front of everyone at the Black Piglet, but it was Gunnar Heiberg who came
to her defense.Strindberg was known for
his bad temper and for starting fights for no particular reason, so it was
nothing extraordinary.Gunnar, who had recently separated from his wife Didi, however, fell for Oda
and began the affair. He had light red hair and blue eyes, was the son of a judge, and took a job as
newspaper correspondent in Paris so he could be closer to Oda.
Gunnar
Meanwhile, Hans worked for the New York Life Insurance
company in Paris, in 1892.There he worked with the Danish anarchist Jean
Jacques Ipsen. Hans was also a great admirer of the anarchist-painter, Francis
Auguste Königstein, better known as Ravachol, who was sentenced to death in
1892 and executed by guillotine.Hans
was also playing the horses (he had a system) and drinking absinthe.How cliché?
After the death of her father in 1892, Oda moved to his
house on Grønnegate in Kristiania and brought her four children back together.Krohg won a competition in 1893 to
exhibit a painting at the World's Fair in Chicago.
1893 also saw
the publication of Hans' Syk Kjærlihet (Diseased Love).In his exiled state, the bookhad to be printed in Paris and it marked the beginning of Hans'
portrayal of the drama that took place during the summer and autumn of 1888. He described a love triangle where he
was deeply in love with a woman who was engaged to marry a painter. This was
followed by a second, Confessions, which was printed in Lorient in 1902, and Prison and Despair, which
came out of Concarneau in 1903. All three books were banned in the Nordic
countries.
Syk
Kjærlihet was
followed by Gunnar's play Balkonen in 1894.The script was based on his relationship with
Krohg and Oda.Oda spent some time with Krohg and Gunnar in
Copenhagen, but then, trying to get away from her husband, she traveled alone
to Paris in the spring of 1895, only to return to Norway the following year.
Kristiania Theatre
Back
in Kristiania, opening night for Gunnar's political comedy, Folkeraadet
(Council of the People) at the Kristiania Theatre was October 18, 1897. Heated
elections were going on across Norway, making this perhaps not the ideal time
for a play lampooning the government.Or
was it?The results for Kristiania
voting were posted the very morning of Folkeraadet's opening, and there
was a scandal.One of the problems was
that, at Gunnar's urging, Frederick Delius used the Norwegian national anthem
in what was supposed to be a humorous way.After the opening, Delius was
evicted from his room at the hotel.And
critics who gave the show positive reviews were similarly treated at hostelries
around the city.
Fred
Oda,
Per, and Christian Krohg moved to Paris in 1897, where he had accepted a
position as instructor at Académie Colarossi. Krohg, who was fluent in French, German,
English, and Norwegian, became very popular with the international students. Persistent loverGunnar, in the meantime, took a job
as correspondent in Paris, in order to be near Oda.
An
American student described the scene at Colarossi:
The crowd there was made up of all nationalities; we were generally packed. The clothed models - men, women, and children - were usually Italian, and looked out of their element in the chilly fog of Paris...In the room where we drew from the nude, the air was stifling because of an overheated stove, and the model perspired heavily under the electric light...It was an inferno, rank with the smells of perspiring bodies, scent and fresh paint, damp waterproofs and dirty feet, tobacco from cigarettes and pipes, but the industry with which we all worked had to be seen to be believed.
Edvard was twenty-nine in the autumn of 1898 when he met Tulla Larsen, a Kristiania Bohemian who dropped by the Grand Café occasionally. She posed for him to do a full-length portrait. Love bloomed, but they were a mismatched set. In the fall, she went to Berlin to give him time to work, but he didn't follow right away. When he finally showed, in the spring of 1899, they fought because she wanted to marry, though they did not really get along. He did offer some sort of engagement, but kept avoiding the commitment. The denouement occurred that August in Switzerland, leading Edvard to return to Norway, while Tulla spent the winter in Munich. She waited to hear from Edvard until late August 1902, when she swallowed a bottle of opium. Edvard retrieved her and brought her to Åsgårdstrand, for an attempted reconciliation. Frustrated and drunk, Edvard shot himself in the hand, which proved the spark to finally end the relationship. Tulla went to Paris where she hung with other Norwegian artists like the 'secret couple,' Gunnar and Oda.
Tulla
Krohg thrived at the Académie Colarossi, as he became mentor to all the young Scandinavians who studied with him and later sat at his table in the Café Voltaire. Meanwhile, young Per grew up a native: "I did my homework and went to the Café Voltaire; drew, or read Indian books while the grownups played billiards."
Per and Pop
Per also recalled how, at age 9, a drawing of his was
included in a large exhibition of children's art at the Petit Palais. It wasn't much longer before he was a student
at Colarossi.In 1903 Oda showed at the Salon de Paris, and a year later held her first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne (also in Paris), where she continued to be regularly
involved until 1909. Even with her lack
of instruction, Oda had developed an appealing style and succeeded doing
portraits.
Académie Matisse
Scandinavian artists began going to the newly opened Académie
Matisse.Isaac Grunewald of Sweden
arrived in the fall of 1908, and fell under Matisse's spell at the Salon
d'Automne:
Suddenly, I stood in
front of a wall that sang, no screamed, color and radiated light.Something completely new and ruthless in its
unbridled freedom.
In 1909, Krohg was appointed the first director of the Norwegian Academy of Arts,
in Kristiania, so it was time to go home for Krohg and Oda, leaving Per in
Paris.
Krohg
Sorry for such a long story. I hope you found it interesting. Now turn left onto boulevard du Montparnasse. I'm going to save us all a few steps here by pointing out important places nearby without actually seeing them, because there isn't really anything to see, but the history is interesting.
First, I direct your attention up the boulevard du Montparnasse. The second left is rue de Chevreuse where, at No. 4, in the early 1890’s, Elisabeth Mills Reid, a wealthy American philanthropist and wife of the American ambassador, got the idea to start a residential club for American women artists in Paris. She knew there was an arts club for men when she learned that this property was available. She got together with her friends and founded The American Girls Art Club in Paris. It was a residential club for young American women artists that provided 'matronly supervision and spiritual guidance.'
It was affordable and very social, with room for approximately forty-fifty women in either single or double rooms at approximately $30 per month. There was a “dainty blue” receiving room for playing the piano and serving tea, as well as a reading room full of English-language books and magazines. The residents often strolled and sketched in the gardens of the courtyard.
Now, look up Raspail to your left to see Auguste Rodin's sculpture of Honoré Balzac, in the median. Commissioned in 1891, with the Monument to Balzac, Rodin sought to portray the persona of the great writer. However, the people paying for it disagreed when they saw the plaster model. The commission was cancelled and Rodin moved it to his home in Meudon. Then twenty-two years after the sculptor's death, the model was cast in bronze for the first time and placed at this intersection.
And on the right, you can see rue Bréa where many more artists lived. However, I want to mention one particular resident who lived at No. 1.
Kiki
Wild, impetuous, and amoral, at a time when, beyond bohemian circles, women were still expected to be seen and not heard, Kiki of Montparnasse danced to her own drummer. She was painted by many artists such as Soutine, who named her 'Kiki,' Modi, Foujita, Moïse, and most famously photographed by Man Ray, her lover for eight stormy years.
Le Violon d'Ingres by Man Ray, 1924, on the right
She began life as Alice Ernestine Prin and had a wretched childhood. It did not get much better when she came to Paris at age twelve. After a series of menial jobs, she drifted into posing for artists, and then in 1929 she was named "Queen of Montparnasse."
"I had found my real milieu," she wrote. "The painters adopted me. Finished my sadness. Sometimes I didn't have enough to eat but the jokes made me forget all that."
"She had a wonderful nose that seemed to jut out into space," said Alexander Calder, who portrayed it in a wire sculpture called Kiki's Nose.
Kiki topped the bill at le Cocher Fidèle, le Cabaret des Fleurs, or la Cigogne (the Stork). She even had her own Chez Kiki, for a time. But mostly, she was famous for being famous and in 1953, she collapsed outside her flat at Number 1 rue Bréa, and died. "With her death," Fugita said, "the golden days of Montparnasse were buried forever."
On the corner across the street we see le Dôme Café or Café du Dôme. Once a place a poor artist was able to get a cheap meal, today it is a high-end fish restaurant. Since its opening in 1898, le Dôme was frequented by the famous (or soon to be famous) painters, sculptors, writers, poets, models, connoisseurs and dealers.
The term Dômiers was coined to refer to this international group of visual and literary artists. However, there was a division of real estate. Americans from the academies were in the back room playing billiards, while the German-speaking artists and friends sat in the front playing poker. They were often joined by the Scandinavians, Serbs, Hungarians, etc. But rarely women, and they did not mix well with the Americans.
Les Dômiers
Here are some of the luminaries who frequented le Dôme, but not necessarily at the same time:
Artists: Thomas Hart Benton, Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, Tsuguharu Foujita, Paul Gauguin, Wassily Kandinsky, Moïse Kisling, Amedeo Modigliani, Jules Pascin, Picasso, Man Ray, Chaim Soutine. Photogs: Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Writers: Kahlil Gibran, Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin.
Anaïs
Even Vladimir Lenin would stop in for a bit of gossip. Here are a couple of more obscure references I would like to share:
Ida, 1904
Ida Gerhardi was a German Neo-Impressionist painter who spent much of her career in Paris. In 1891, she began study at the Académie Colarossi with her friend Jelka Rosen. Ida soon joined the artistic circle at le Dôme. She did landscapes and scenes from the amusement halls and pubs, which she visited with her friend, Käthe Kollwitz, at a time when it was just beginning to be acceptable for unaccompanied women to visit such establishments.
Ida, Jelka, and students at Académie Colarossi
In 1907, Ida organized an exhibition of French art in Berlin at the Galerie Eduard Schulte and then held an exhibition of German art at a gallery called Les Tendances Nouvelles in Paris. Novel, I thought.
Fred
Frederick Dana Marsh came to Paris in 1895 and lived above le Dôme. He left Chicago (via NY) with minimal artistic training, studied with Jean Paul Laurens at the Académie Julien, had his painting, Lady in Scarlet, accepted by le Salon, married a fellow student-artist and model, Alice Randall, had three sons, and returned to New York, all by 1900.
Lady in Scarlet
I should mention that Fred went on to have a successful career as a muralist and illustrator, even a bit of a celebrity as he did commissions for many wealthy patrons, including the Rockefellers, the E.F. Huttons, etc. Better Homes & Gardens did a spread on the Marsh's New Rochelle home in 1918, and even a film was made about him: Interesting People - A Master of Murals was shot in 1928 and ran in movie theatres along with the feature.
The middle son surpassed the fame of his father, however. Reginald Marsh was
a well-known Ashcan artist whose work hangs in most American museums.
Before we cross the boulevard, let's make this the:
