The Montmartre Museum is presenting an extraordinary exhibition featuring 130 rarely seen paintings and sculptures from the first half of the 20th century, all belonging to Polish collector Marek Roefler. The exhibition, titled "The School of Paris Renaissance at Montmartre," showcases works by legendary artists including Chagall, Foujita, Tamara de Lempicka, and Zadkine, offering visitors a comprehensive look at the cosmopolitan artistic movement that flourished in Paris between the dawn of the 20th century and World War II.
From the early 1900s until the Second World War, before New York supplanted it as the global art capital, Paris was the undisputed center of the international art world. It was here, more than anywhere else, that artistic modernity was invented and developed. The movement began in Montmartre and later spread to Montparnasse, creating a vibrant artistic ecosystem that attracted creative minds from around the globe.
The term "School of Paris" was actually popularized by André Warnod, an art critic for Le Figaro, who used the initially pejorative expression in 1925 to describe this cosmopolitan artistic effervescence. "In fact, it's not really a school or even a movement, but rather a constellation of artists who, across several generations, often came from far away," explains Fanny de Lépinau, director of the Montmartre Museum. De Lépinau successfully convinced collector Marek Roefler to display 130 of his works in situ, all acquired over the past thirty years and all reflecting this artistic ferment that has always fascinated her.
This remarkable collection is leaving its home for the first time from Villa La Fleur near Warsaw, where it has been housed. The ensemble bears witness to this incomparable artistic momentum, which had no single unified style but was united by its revolutionary spirit and international character. Among the highlights is Franco-Polish artist Boleslas Biegas' striking "Melancholy" (1920), which exemplifies the artist's development of stunning "spherical portraits" beginning in 1918.
The exhibition demonstrates the extraordinary Parisian influence that attracted artists from across Europe and beyond, who came to the French capital seeking artistic freedom and innovation. These painters and sculptors, many of whom were immigrants or expatriates, found in Paris a welcoming environment where they could experiment with new forms of artistic expression while maintaining connections to their cultural origins.
The Montmartre Museum's presentation of this collection provides a unique opportunity to see works that have remained largely private and unknown to the public. The exhibition offers fresh insights into the diverse artistic currents that flowed through Paris during this pivotal period in art history, when traditional boundaries were being broken and new aesthetic languages were being forged by this remarkable international community of artists.
