Patrick Bade
Chaïm Soutine and The Ecole de Paris, Part 1
Summary
The lecture provides an overview of Paris’s vibrant artistic scene from 1900 to 1940, emphasizing its magnetism for artists worldwide. Initially centered in Montmartre, the artistic community known at the Ecole de Paris shifted to Montparnasse around 1907, where figures like Chagall, Modigliani, and Soutine thrived in places like La Ruche. The lecture focuses on Soutine (1893–1943), detailing his rise to fame, his fascination with painting figures from luxury hotels and restaurants, and his tragic death during World War II. Part 1 of 2.
Patrick Bade
Patrick Bade is a historian, writer, and broadcaster. He studied at UCL and the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was a senior lecturer at Christie’s Education for many years and has worked for the Art Fund, Royal Opera House, National Gallery, and V&A. He has published on 19th- and early 20th-century paintings and historical vocal recordings. His latest book is Music Wars: 1937–1945.
It’s the process of assimilation. I still have the catalogue of Jewish artists of the Ecole de Paris in Montparnasse, and there were dozens of them where you knew almost nothing about them. If it were not for the Holocaust, many, many more artists would be known to us. Because the big tragedy is that they were murdered. Not only were they murdered, but their studios were pillaged, and very often their life’s work was destroyed.
He was just such a natural. He didn’t have much formal training. It was just in him.
Well, until the terrible end, he’d managed quite a good life. But who’s to say really?