School of Paris
(1910-1950)

   Paris was the inviolable center of international art until after WWII. The School of Paris was the name of a period when Paris was attracting artists from all over the world - a time when the French capital was regarded by one and all as the greatest laboratory of modern art. Even with New York City's emergence as a center of contemporary international art, Paris has continued to this day to produce artists of major significance.

   The name Ecole de Paris (School of Paris) was still in use after World War II. Its use was then extended to encompass all non-figurative artists. The name finally ended up referring to so many different artists that it lost all specific meaning. In the early 1920s it encompasses more than one style and movement; including fauvism, cubism, and orphism.

   School of Paris described a group of artists, most of them of foreign extraction, who had elected to live and work in Paris. Modigliani, Soutine, Chagall, Pascin, Fujita and Kisling, are just a handful of the School's most illustrious representatives. Modigliani's oval faces and almond eyes, Fujita's stunning detail and mix of the West and East, and Soutine's haste and frenzy were all aspects that suggested the "School of Paris" referred more to a community of artists than to any precise style or movement.

   When critics referred to the School of Paris, their intent was above all to combat the modern hegemony of the New York School. In the end the name veiled the diversity of the artists, and the later School of Paris never earned the success and recognition of its earlier years.