Modernist Diaspora: Immigrant Jewish Artists in Paris, 1900-1945

Description

In the years before, during and after the First World War, hundreds of young Jews flocked to Paris, artistic capital of the world and center of modernist experimentation. Some arrived with prior training in art academies in Kraków, Vilna and Vitebsk; others came armed only with hope and a few memorized phrases in French. They had little Jewish tradition in painting and sculpture to draw on, yet despite these drawbacks, these young Jews produced the greatest efflorescence of art in the long history of the Jewish people. The paintings of Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Sonia Delaunay-Terk and Emmanuel Mané-Katz, and the sculptures of Jacques Lipchitz, Ossip Zadkine, Chana Orloff and many other artists now grace the world’s museums. As the École de Paris was the most cosmopolitan artistic movement the world had seen, the left-bank neighborhood of Montparnasse became a meeting place for diverse cultures. How did the tolerant, bohemian atmosphere of Montparnasse encourage an international style of art in an era of bellicose nationalism, not to mention racism and antisemitism? How did immigrants not only absorb but also influence a culture? This book examines how the clash of cultures produced genius. Cover Halftitle page Title page Halftitle page Copyright page Dedication Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Modernism and Diaspora—The School of Paris in an Age of Immigration 1 Is there Jewish Art? Bohemian Montparnasse An Age of Jewish Immigrants Jewish Art and the Critics The Context of Jewish Thought The Visual and Other Senses The Argument over Time A Jewish Art of Temporality 2 From Montmartre to Montparnasse: New Social and Psychological Dimensions, 1900–1914 Mela Muter La Ruche: Immigrant Artists and Revolutionaries From Primitivism to Surrealism 3 Masculinity and Patriotism: Artistic Responses to World War I, 1914–1920 Jews and Masculinity Jewish Attitudes to World War I Women in Wartime Artists at War Modigliani Routes to Success 4 Cosmopolitan Montparnasse in Les Années Folles, 1920–1930 Artists and Sexual Politics Les Peintres Maudits (The Cursed Painters) Paris Was a Woman: Wives, Mistresses, and Models in Libertine Montparnasse Jules Pascin, Icon of the Crazy Years Kisling, Prince of Montparnasse Soutine and Jewish Expressionism Mané-Katz, Artist of the Diaspora Other Expressionists And Still They Kept Coming 5 Jews in Jazz Age Paris: The Symbiosis of Music and Art Synesthesia Apollinaire and Orpheus on Mount Parnassus The Meeting of Two Diasporas Music and Sculpture Bringing it all Back Home 6 Marketing Art: Jewish Critics and Art Dealers Marketing Art in 1920s Montparnasse La Querelle des Indépendants (Quarrel at the Salon des Indépendants) Backlash: Hostile Reactions to Jewish Artists Ambivalent Jewish Critics 7 Nationalism, Internationalism, and Zionism in the 1930s Where Do the 1930s Fit in the Art Historical Canon? Montparnasse in the 1930s The Popular Front and the Rise of Public Art 1937: Paris Exposition Universelle and the Munich Degenerate Art Show Jacques Lipchitz Chaim Soutine Grégoire Michonze Mané-Katz Marc Chagall 8 The End of Time: Artists in Exile, Hiding, and Deportation Bibliography Index