École de Paris, Collection Marek Roefler

The term “École de Paris” was first used in 1925 by French art critic André Warnod. It refers to a broader phenomenon: the influx of foreign artists who settled first in Montmartre and then in Montparnasse before the First World War, and who made Paris their school of art and life.

Many of these artists, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, were of Jewish origin, but there were also artists from Spain (Picasso), Italy (Modigliani), Japan (Foujita), Mexico (Rivera), Great Britain and the United States. This artistic melting pot enabled Montmartre and Montparnasse to become the cradles of the avant-gardes of the first half of the 20th century. Under the brushes of a multitude of international artists, cubism, fauvism, expressionism and post-impressionism rubbed shoulders and evolved in fertile environments.

Following the North-South axis - from Montmartre to Montparnasse - the “École de Paris, collection Marek Roefler” exhibition presents the fruit of many years of passion and work by the collector, introducing the public to the surprising work of several Polish masters. The names of renowned artists such as Ossip Zadkine, Tamara de Lempicka and Moïse Kisling, accompany those of a generation often unknown to the general public: Henri Hayden, Eugène Zak, Henri Epstein, Mela Muter, Maurice Mendjizky, Simon Mondzain, Wladyslaw Slewinski, Jozef Pankiewicz, Louis Marcoussis, Alice Halicka, and sculptors Auguste Zamoyski, Boleslas Biegas and Jozef Csaky.

The exhibition illustrates the extent of the École de Paris' creative proliferation, as well as the plurality of styles that characterize this movement. The influence of Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh rubs shoulders with the autonomous development of several artists, who founded their own aesthetic under the aegis of free thought, in the years when Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Ambroise Vollard and so many others contributed to the intellectual and commercial influence of the avant-garde.

The exhibition is part of the Musée de Montmartre's ongoing program, which for several years now has been inviting visitors to reflect on the plurality of artistic paths and highlighting the Butte's emblematic role in art history, as well as its creative effervescence.