Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille (eds.)
André Lhote and His
International Students
innsbruck university press
EDITED VOLUME SERIES
innsbruck university press
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille (eds.)
André Lhote and His
International Students
Zeynep Kuban
Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University
Simone Wille
Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Innsbruck
Austrian Science Fund (FWF): Project Number P 29536-G26
Gefördert durch das Vizerektorat für Forschung, den Forschungsschwerpunkt
‚Kulturelle Begegnungen – Kulturelle Konflikte‘ und das Dekanat der PhilosophischHistorischen Fakultät der Universität Innsbruck.
Diese Publikation wurde mit finanzieller Unterstützung des Frankreich-Schwerpunkts sowie des
Vizerektorats für Forschung der Universität Innsbruck gedruckt.
© innsbruck university press, 2020
Universität Innsbruck
1st edition
All rights reserved.
Cover: The Academy around 1948: standing in the background, Solveig Olson; in front of Lhote, Olle
Baertling (moustache and white handkerchief); to his left Günnel Heineman. In the centre (striped tie)
˘ and at the top left, near the stove,
Salah Yousry. In the background, right, Sabri Berkel and Eren Eyüboglu,
Hasan Kavruk. Photo © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP.
Layout: Romana Fiechtner
www.uibk.ac.at/iup
ISBN 978-3-903187-78-8
Table of Contents
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille: Introduction and Acknowledgments ............ 7
Dominique bermann martin: The Life of André Lhote ............................. 17
Fanny Drugeon: From Paris to Mirmande, International Aspects of
Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s Writings and Correspondance ............. 41
michelle greet: Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote ............... 51
˜
alejanDra ortiZ canStanareS
: Manuel Rodríguez Lozano,
the Mexican “Purist” ................................................................................... 69
DaviD burZillo: In Service to Art and Humanity:
The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill .............................................................. 85
Karin SiDén, anna meiSter: André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish
Cubism and Modernism: An Important Teacher-student
Relationship Lasting Five Decades ........................................................... 103
Vesna BurojeVić: Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with
André Lhote .............................................................................................. 125
Zeynep Kuban: An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote .... 137
jamaleDDin toomajnia: Jalil Ziapour: An Iranian Student at the
Académie Lhote ........................................................................................ 161
mehri Khalil: André Lhote and Egypt .................................................... 171
5
Table of Contents
Simone Wille: South Asian Artists at the Académie André Lhote ........... 189
chinghSin Wu: André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art ........................... 209
bruce aDamS anD tracey locK: Missionaries of Modernism:
The Women Artists Who Took André Lhote’s Art and Teachings to
Australia: Dorrit Black, Grace Crowley and Anne Dangar ...................... 225
About the Authors and Editors .................................................................. 257
6
Introduction and Acknowledgments
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille
Dominique Bermann-Martin, niece of the late painter André Lhote (1885-1962),
meticulously archives and collects every letter, every note and record, every detail that has to do with the artist and his life and his dedicated career as a painter,
teacher and theoretician. It is thanks to her that today we can access a well organised private archive that allows us to investigate an unjustly neglected artist
whose contribution in distributing a specific set of formal and theoretical modernist trends holds a significant place in the consideration and the discussion of the
development of modernisms and hybrid aesthetics around the world. Today, the
archive lists approximately 1,590 international artists who frequented the Académie Lhote, and it seems as though the number is growing.1
It is through the Archive André Lhote and via Dominique Bermann-Martin in
person that Simone Wille and Zeynep Kuban were able to meet. The idea of organising a conference and gathering scholars and researchers engaged with the art
of modernism of Lhote’s former students from around the world seemed pertinent
for opening up the discussion and giving the strong and ongoing interest in André
Lhote from outside France the possibility of exchange.
Between 11 and 12 December 2017, Kuban and Wille were thus able to host
the first international conference related to André Lhote and his former students.
The conference entitled “Correlating cultural and ideological positions. André
Lhote, Paris, and his former international students” was held at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and supported by the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and
the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The conference was able to gather 12 paper
1
Email conversation with Dominique Bermann-Martin, 10 March 2019. When, in December
2015, Simone Wille first contacted the association and the Archive André Lhote in Le Raincy
there were about 900 international artists listed in its archive. Simone Wille would like to thank
Lovorka Magaš Bilandžic for having pointed out to her the whereabouts of the Archive Lhote in
2015.
7
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille
presentations by speakers from four continents. Colleagues from Sweden, Australia as well as one colleague from the United States and another from France
were, unfortunately, unable to attend in person. However, their pre-recorded paper
presentations entirely made up for the loss and were screened for the audience
in Istanbul.2 Ahu Antmen’s introductory lecture on modernism in Turkey was a
welcome addition to our conference, as were our invited discussants Ali Artun and
Begüm Akkoyunlu from the Pera Museum. Targeted site visits within Istanbul –
organised by Zeynep Kuban – gave us the opportunity to see paintings, frescoes
and mosaics by former Turkish students of André Lhote.
While Lhote still continues to be neglected in his native France – which is
stressed by the absence of his works from the recent exhibition Le Cubisme at the
Centre Pompidou3 – outside France he is highly visible and discussed as a key
figure in disseminating a structured approach to modernist painting methods. The
fact that a growing interest in Lhote outside France coincides with an increasing engagement with modernist artists, movements and centres around the world
is pertinent and demonstrates the discrepancy between conventional modern art
history, along with its exclusionary mechanism, and a history of modern art that
increasingly seeks to include and acknowledge the significance of artistic mobility and the dimensions of cultural transfer shaping the plurality of modernism.
Lhote was highly acknowledged during his lifetime. From early on in his career he contributed to lively discussions on art and art-critical exchanges between
artist friends and writers. Most notable is his lifelong friendship with his contemporary Jacques Rivière (1886-1925) who, like Lhote, was from Bordeaux.
Through Lhote’s alliances with lettered men like Rivière, Gabriel Frizeau (18701938) and Alain-Fournier (1886-1914) he had a strong network to rely on and this
consequently helped him to settle in the French capital. The primarily self-taught
2
3
8
Fanny Drugeon’s paper was read in her absence at the conference in Istanbul.
The exhibition Le Cubisme was held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris between 17 October
2018 and 25 February 2019. In an article titled “Cubisme à Pompidou: où est donc passé André
Lhote?,” Françoise Garcia writes about the incomprehension of not including the artist André
Lhote. Garcia refers to the conceptual outline of the exhibition commissioners of presumably
wanting to demonstrate that there existed not one but many Cubisms simultaneously with not one
path but many paths that branched off and the writer is therefore even more surprised that Lhote
was not included in this exhibition. www.liberation.fr/auteur/19313-francoise-garcia, accessed 4
March 2019.
Introduction and Acknowledgments
painter exhibited at the important salons as early as 1907 and began teaching at
different academies from 1916/1917 onwards. In 1919, after World War I and
under the directorship of Jacques Rivière, La Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF)
re-emerged and Lhote joined the journal to become one of its most important
contributors (Bouiller 2007: 15).4
Lhote’s art, his writings and theories, correspondence and conference participations were not restricted to Paris and France but took him and his voice to many
places. In the 1910s his texts were published in reviews such as the Swedish flamman5, La Gazette de Hollande, Das Kunstblatt, Der Cicerone and Revue du Caire
(Bouiller 2007: 15-31).6 His first solo exhibition outside France took place in Gothenburg in Sweden in 1913 and was followed by many more. His work appeared
in a group exhibition in 1913 in Japan7, followed by exhibitions with Nika in the
1920s.8 Lhote’s works were shown in a series of exhibitions in several countries
and places in South America mainly between the wars.9 He exhibited at the Venice
Biennale and he attended conferences in Venice 193410 (Adamson 2008) and in
Algiers in 1936. His Algiers conference was accompanied by an exhibition of his
works. In his role as a teacher and a theoretician in the Paris of the 1910s, 1920s
and 1930s, Lhote was able to make important international acquaintances from
which close friendships were formed. He thus formed close ties with the Egyptian
4
André Lhote wrote for the NRF between 1919 and 1941. See also Dominique Bermann-Martin’s
contribution to this volume.
5 Lhote published his first article on Cubism in flamman in 1917. See also Karin Sidén and
Anna Meister’s contribution to this volume, “André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and
Modernism.”
6 According to Bouiller, between 1912 and 1962 Lhote published texts that appeared in more than
60 reviews. The same author claims that Lhote published a number of books with approx. 10
publishers. (Bouiller 2007: 16). For a good summary of where Lhote published throughout his
life, see Bouiller 2007: 15-31.
For La Revue du Caire see also Mehri Khalil’s contribution in this volume.
7 See Chinghsin Wu’s contribution in this volume.
8 See both Chinghsin Wu’s and Dominique Bermann-Martin’s contribution in this volume. Note
that Dominique Bermann-Martin uses the French transcription of Nika which becomes Nikwa.
9 See Michele Greet’s contribution in this volume.
10 The League of Nations Congress was held in Venice in August 1934. It took place at the Institut
international de coopération intelectuelle. See Lhote, A., “L’art et la réalité—Discours de Venise,”
in Parlons Peinture, Paris, 1936, p. 59. Quoted from Adamson, Natalie, “To regenerate painting:
letters, 1934-48, between Jean Bazaine and André Lhote,” The Burlington Magazine, May 2008.
9
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille
diplomat and artist Mohamed Naghi through whom he was invited to visit Egypt
twice between 1951 and 1952.11 In 1952 he was invited to Brazil, where he established L’Atelier Montparnasse in Rio de Janeiro.12
Lhote has been regarded by many as a contributor to Cubism and the “rappel à
l’ordre” movement and his triple identity – that of painter, writer and teacher – is
undisputed (Bouiller 2007: 15).
Lhote’s “logically ordered compositions” (Snelgrove 1933: 21), combined
with his capacity as an art critic writing for important publications such as La
Nouvelle Revue Française, gained him recognition far beyond France and Europe
during his lifetime. His rigorous study of the great masters of the past and his
ability to analyse and formulate their compositions is at the core of his method.
Yet he also received much criticism for his conviction for classical art and his
belief that reconciliation with the past was possible and necessary (Bouiller 2007:
24). Bouiller claims that Lhote’s attempt to reconcile tradition with modernity,
particularly as exercised in his endeavour to set out to restore little French villages like Mirmande, Gordes and La Cadière-d’Azure, were in stark contrast with
the call from avant-garde artists, futurist, and modern architects, who pleaded for
the need to destroy in order to build anew (Bouiller 2007: 24). While Bouiller
sees Lhote as fatally proposing “a synthesis between tradition and modernity”
(Bouiller 2007: 24) and therefore doubts whether to include or exclude him from
the avant-garde artists, at the same time he underlines some of his strategies that
are in line with the avant-garde, such as Lhote’s denouncement of Impressionism,
his conceptual language when speaking of musicality in relation to paintings and
his inciting of artists not to please the audience (Bouiller 2007: 23-24). For critics like Bouiller, Lhote remains ambivalent and positioned between academism
and the avant-garde. The fact that he downplays Lhote’s artistic and theoretical
success abroad as something of importance only to “foreign amateurs” (Bouiller
2007: 21) falls in line with a general neglect of the artist, especially in his native
France. But it also reflects the still-prevalent understanding of modernist art history between the wars as a European master narrative where every other modernist centre in the world is viewed as simply responding to a few centres like Paris,
11 See Dominique Bermann-Martin’s and Mehri Khalil’s contribution in this volume.
12 See Dominique Bermann-Martin’s and Michele Greet’s contribution in this volume.
10
Introduction and Acknowledgments
Berlin and Vienna. An increasing number of art historical research over the past
two decades has emphasised the importance of the circulation of artists when it
comes to the formation of multiple modernisms, composite identities and hybrid
aesthetics,13 yet the established and still dominant narratives of Western European
modernism still focus on the centres mentioned above. This neglects the transnational interconnections that significantly and profoundly contributed to the formation of these cosmopolitan places along with its modernist art.
While this volume, in connection with the 2017 conference, clearly sets out to
investigate Lhote’s role in disseminating a certain concept for producing modernist paintings through his international students, its declared goal is to contribute
to an understanding of modernist art as a combination of cultural mobility, of
people’s movements, meeting points, contacts and networks. Artistic mobility and
the productive power of circulation and exchange, then, is at the core of the essays
in this collection. The range of students that attended Lhote’s academy – professional and amateur artists from around the world – was reflected in the conference
and is a feature of this present publication. Consequently, a range of voices – from
academics, curators, museum directors, a journalist, two PhD candidates, a history teacher and an archivist – are collected here to reflect on Lhote and his triple
identity.
Dominique Bermann-Martin weaves us through Lhote’s life by emphasising
key moments and key encounters. Key episodes are connected with some of his
major artistic works, and his role as a writer and teacher is thus brought into
13 Amongst a number of landmark publications that bring into focus a number of regional
perspectives from sites across the world are Mercer, Kobena (ed.), Discrepant Abstraction,
Cambridge, Mass.: 2006; Craven, David, Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910–1990, New
Haven: 2006; Harney, Elizabeth, In Senghor’s Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in
Senegal, 1960–1995, Durham, N.C.: 2004; Mitter, Partha, The Triumph of Modernism. India’s
Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922–1947, London: 2007; Dadi, Iftikhar, Modernism and the Art
of Muslim South Asia, Chapel Hill: 2010; Huyssen, Andreas, “Geographies of Modernism in
a Globalizing World,” in: Brooker, Peter/Thacker Andrew (eds.), Geographies of Modernism.
Literatures, Cultures, Spaces, London: 2005, 6–18; Bardaouil, Sam, Surrealism in Egypt.
Modernism and the Art and Liberty Group, London: 2017; Hock, Beáta, Allas, Anu (eds.),
Globalizing East European Art Histories. Past and Present, New York/London: 2018; Greet,
Michele, Transatlantic Encounters. Latin American Artists in Paris Between the Wars, New
Haven/London: 2018; For a rich study of the migration of material objects related to mobility, see
Flood, Finbarr B., Objects of Translation. Material Culture and the Medieval “Hindu-Muslim”
Encounter, Princeton, NJ: 2009.
11
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille
connection with his achievement as an artist whose career spans more than five
decades.
Fanny Drugeon puts the focus on the essence of Lhote’s teaching method and
its dissemination on an international scale. When she exemplifies this by drawing
on certain correspondence between the teacher and his students, Drugeon ends
her essay pointing to a key principle that represents Lhote’s academy, namely his
life-long learning along with his students.
Michele Greet’s extensive study of Latin American artists in Paris in the interwar period is broken down here to focus on those who studied with André Lhote.
It sheds light on how Lhote’s theory and teaching methods differed in relation to
other academies in Paris and it demonstrates the significance of travel and movement in establishing modernism on both sides of the Atlantic. While Greet draws
our attention to a range of artists from Latin America, some well-known and others lesser known, Alejandra Ortiz Castañares introduces us to one Mexican artist,
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, and his connection to André Lhote. David Burzillo’s
focus on the life of Caroline Rogers Hill sheds light on a highly versatile female
protagonist active on many levels, mainly between France and the US East Coast
after World War I and post-World War II. The friendship that developed between
Hill and Lhote went far beyond the regular art-teacher/student relationship and
it evolved around a wide range of topics.14 Leaving the American continent behind, Karin Sidén and Anna Meister share with us their research that resulted in a
large exhibition in Stockholm in 2017, titled Form and Colour – André Lhote and
Swedish Cubism. While this exhibition is the first of its kind to focus on Lhote as a
teacher, to many it also reveals that Lhote’s Swedish students were one of his most
loyal groups. Between the early 1910s until the late 1950s, some 200 of Lhote’s
students came from Sweden.
Vesna Burojević, in turn, looks closely at one Serbian artist, Sava Šumanović,
who was an early student of Lhote even before he opened his own academy. We
regret not having Zana Gvozdenovic’s conference contribution in this book. She
spoke about the many artists from the former Kingdom of SHS/Yugoslavia and
14 Caroline Rogers Hill was one of many American female students who attended André Lhote’s
academy.
12
Introduction and Acknowledgments
their intense connections to Paris and the Académie Lhote and added a highly
welcomed introduction to Burojević’s presentation.
Zeynep Kuban draws a picture of the many Turkish students who studied at
Lhote’s academy in the 1930s and late 1940s. They played a crucial role in the
development of academic artistic production in the early decades of the new Republic of Turkey after their return home from Paris.
As part of his doctoral thesis at the Istanbul Technical University, Jamaleddin
Toomajnia focuses on Jalil Ziapour and his contribution to Iranian modern art
through André Lhote’s teaching method.
In the framework of her doctoral thesis with the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Mehri Khalil draws attention to André Lhote’s connection to Egypt. She
does so by reflecting on some of his Egyptian students, Lhote’s personal interest
in ancient Egyptian art and his friendship with an Egyptian diplomat and artist.
This adds to Lhote’s understanding of modern art as formally connected to the
past, if not rooted in it.
While the majority of the artists discussed so far travelled to Paris between
the two wars, Simone Wille’s essay on South Asian artists at the Académie André
Lhote changes the timeline and shifts the focus to the post-World War II years,
when many countries established their own and unique political framework for
contemporary art. The fact that André Lhote’s Académie still attracted a large
number of artists from all corners of the world is scrutinised in her essay through
two artists from India and one artist from Pakistan.
Moving further to the East on the map, Chinghsin Wu draws attention to
Lhote’s early connection to Japan through his works that were exhibited in the
country as early as the 1910s and the 1920s. While Chinghsin Wu argues that
Lhote has largely been forgotten in Japan, she sets out to claim that his far-reaching influence on Japanese modernism occurred due to his early visibility in Japan
as an artist whose work was frequently shown in exhibitions, along with his voice
that reflected on modernist painting practice as rooted in many traditions including classical Chinese art.
The tour around the world ends with a contribution by Tracey Lock and Bruce
Adams, who focus on three women artists from Australia and the role they played
in disseminating Lhote’s method and understanding of modern art.
13
Zeynep Kuban, Simone Wille
While 11 articles in this volume are based on the respective conference papers,
two papers were commissioned later to devote attention to Lhote’s connection to
Egypt and Japan, respectively. There are still many more regions and topics to be
discussed in relation to André Lhote and his teaching principles. However, we feel
that this is a good start and that it will hopefully attract further research.
Most contributors were able to work with original and unpublished archival
material, making this volume original and absolutely central for a field of study
in which archival materials are quite sparse and very little is firmly established.
Viewing and discussing André Lhote in relation to artistic mobility, networks
and protagonists – from an international perspective rather than from a nationcentred discourse on art history – allows a successful argument for the importance
of complex geographical networks in the development and critical re-evaluation
of modernism throughout the world.
The flow of students into the Académie Lhote from all over the world throughout nearly 40 years triggered a mutual interest in learning how to construct a solid,
modern painting; not only painters but also photographers, cartoonists, engravers
and sculptors profited from Lhote’s education. Friendships developed under these
circumstances. The curiosity that was awakened in this place, the satisfaction but
also dissatisfaction with the master’s principles and the sense of family that Lhote
was able to convey and create in his little shed at 18, rue d’Odessa in Montparnasse between 1925 and 1961 were crucial for the success of his school that lasted
almost 40 years. The Lhote Académie represents a microcosmic version of the
cosmopolitan Paris that was shaped by the flow and circulation of thousands of
single artists from around the world in the first half of the 20th century and well
into the 1960s. In an attempt to add to the master narrative of modernism, the lives
and the many cultural encounters of more or less neglected personalities may help
to re-read and thus re-write European modernism as a set of global connections
related to complex political and cultural possibilities. Choosing to focus on single
protagonists and their engagement with and contribution to modernism in centres
and off-centres around the world will contribute to breaking the monolithic lineage of modernism that is still largely perceived as white and Western.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dominique Bermann-Martin, whose efforts in keeping the Archive André Lhote in Le Raincy has enabled
the study of all the individual artists in this project. The contributors have been
14
Introduction and Acknowledgments
exciting, engaged partners in our enterprise and we would like to thank them all
for their participation. We are grateful for the support of Istanbul Technical University for generously hosting our 2017 conference. We must acknowledge the
support for both the conference and the publication of the University of Innsbruck
and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). We thank Romana Fiechtner and Birgit
Holzner from innsbruck university press for their patience and endurance in putting together this volume.
References
Adamson, Natalie, “To regenerate painting: letters, 1934-48, between Jean Bazaine and
André Lhote,” The Burlington Magazine, May 2008.
Bouiller, Jean-Roch, “Art Criticism and Avant-Garde: André Lhote’s Written Works,” in:
Beekman, Klaus/Vries, Jan de (eds.), Avant-Garde and Criticism, Avant-Garde Critical Studies, Amsterdam, New York 2007, 15-31.
Snelgrave, Gordon William, “An investigation of the present developments from cubism
as exemplified by the work and theories of André Lhote,” Master of Arts Dissertation,
The University of Chicago, Illinois 1933.
15
The Life of André Lhote
Dominique Bermann Martin
1885-1919 The Apprentice Years: The self-learned. The formative
influences he acquired and applied. His admirations, friendships and
rejections
André Lhote was born in Bordeaux on 5 July 1885. It was the same year as Robert
and Sonia Delaunay, Roger de la Fresnaye and Marie Laurencin.1
Nothing indicated his artistic or intellectual careers. His parents were poor, his
father was a municipal employee, working as a guardian in the town’s cemetery,
and his mother an embroiderer. His schooling was terminated with the primary
school certificate,2 after which he became an apprentice in cabinetmaking at the
Courbaterre workshop, working at ornamental wood-carving. From this time, André Lhote developed an irresistible need to paint (Fig. 1).
Lhote’s first chance at a life as an artist came from his boss, Mr Courbaterre,
an amateur painter in his spare time, who also taught wood carving at the School
of Fine Arts in Bordeaux. Thanks to him, and by following his courses, Lhote was
allowed access to the paint workshops at this school until he was 20.
As well as his apprenticeship and his lessons at the School of Fine Arts, André
Lhote trekked the countryside on Sundays, painting landscapes on bits of cardboard.3 He explained: “I used to read in the workshop, hiding a book tied on a
string, under my overalls, so that it wouldn’t fall if I needed to hide it. What could
I do? I needed to learn. I purchased books no longer needed by friends richer than
1
2
3
By comparison, here are some birth dates of painters who were his contemporaries: Raoul Dufy
(1877), Albert Gleizes (1881), Pablo Picasso (1882), Jean Metzinger (1883), Diego Rivera
(1886), Marc Chagall (1887).
He obtained his basic school-leaving qualification at the age of 13 in 1898.
He did not have the money to buy real painter’s material.
17
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 1: Atelier Courbaterre Bordeaux, photography, 1898, in front, young André Lhote.
© Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
I, and educated myself as best I could.”4 As soon as Lhote could leave home he
did, as his parents opposed his decision to become a painter. He mixed with dealers in the flea market, exchanging his works for unknown African and Oceanic
sculptures. At that time the port of Bordeaux traded with Africa and overseas. Settlers, explorers and traders unloaded here. They often disposed of objects found
abroad and got rid of them on the spot, selling them to junk dealers. André Lhote
rapidly acquired a collection of African and Oceanic art.
The second chance came with his meeting with a junk dealer at Mériadeck
market,5 Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve,6 an ex-sailor and adventurer, artist (he made
4
5
6
18
Text from a typed autobiography without date, unpublished, incomplete, found in André Lhote’s
private papers. Translation by Dominique Bermann Martin.
Mériadeck is the name of the flea market in Bordeaux.
The archives of Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve (1863-1934) are curated in La Collection de L’Art
The Life of André Lhote
masks from shells) and mosaicist, who introduced him to the sole collector of
modern art in Bordeaux, Gabriel Frizeau (1870-1938) (Moueix: 1969). An art
collector and amateur of modern literature, Frizeau was a friend of the writers
Francis Jammes, Paul Claudel and André Gide.7 He became the patron and substitute father of the young painter, who discovered in his house an important collection of Odilon Redon’s works,8 one of Frizeau’s friends, as well as works by
Paul Gauguin, including the huge “D’où venons-nous ? Qui sommes-nous? Où
allons-nous?”9
This was a determining discovery for the young Lhote, being his first introduction to modern painting. He had the revelation of a painting with frank tones,
distributed in spots of flat colours, partitioned by black lines. To him, it was comparable to the frescoes of Romanesque art. He found this in the provincial town of
Bordeaux, where Fauvism in painting was still unknown.
In 1907, at the home of Gabriel Frizeau, Lhote met a young man of his own
age, a student in philosophy, Jacques Rivière (1886-1925), who was to become director of the Nouvelle Revue Française.10 An immediate and formative friendship
sprang up and was nurtured by an intense correspondence and sharing of mutual
knowledge. With this epistolary conversation, they gave positive criticism in the
best sense of the term: the exchanges between the two young men allowed them
to clarify their own literary or artistic conceptions.
In 1908, this friendship and correspondence was enriched by a friend and future brother-in-law of Jacques Rivière, Henri Alain-Fournier,11 who was later to
become a writer (Fig. 2).
These friends helped Lhote to settle in Paris. Together they attended exhibitions, introduced him to music and Parisian theatres (Pelleas and Melisande by
Debussy, Russian ballets, etc.)
Brut in Lausanne (Switzerland). During the 1920s, André Lhote introduced him to the Surrealist
group and André Breton and organized an exhibition of Maisonneuve masks in Paris in 1925.
7 Francis Jammes (1868-1938); Paul Claudel (1868-1955); André Gide (1869-1951).
8 Odilon Redon (1840-1916).
9 Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), oil on canvas, painted in 1897-98, 139 cm x 374 cm, Boston Museum
of Fine Arts (inv. 36270).
10 J. Rivière became secretary of NRF in 1911 and director in 1919.
11 Henri Fournier who will be Alain-Fournier (1886-1914) will be the author of Le Grand Meaulnes,
Émile-Paul, Paris, 1913.
19
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 2: Lhote, André, Portrait d’AlainFournier, 1912, pencil drawing on
paper, 34 x 22 cm. © Archives André
Lhote © ADAGP
After several failed attempts, André Lhote was admitted to the Autumn Salon
in 1907. Cézanne,12 who had died the previous year, was given a retrospective
(56 works on show). This had a decisive impact on Lhote and shaped his artistic
orientation for the rest of his life. Lhote continually referred to Cézanne, wrote
various articles about him and placed him at the summit of his artistic pantheon.
Cézanne was the initiator of “La Métaphore plastique”, which Lhote required for
art. His book, written in 1949 about Cézanne,13 biblically begins: “In the beginning, there was Cézanne …” From Cézanne, Lhote discovered and learned the
construction of the geometrical pictorial space, the rhythm of colours, alternating
warm and cold tones, dark and light colour values.
12 Paul Cézanne (1839-1906).
13 André Lhote, Paul Cézanne, Jean Marguerat, Lausanne, 1949.
20
The Life of André Lhote
Another influential encounter for the painter that would prove formative
occurred in 1908, when he met Georges Rouault,14 an artist different from his
contemporaries,15 who initiated Lhote in the technique of oil painting on paper.
This process of painting must be very rapid, as it penetrates very quickly and
leaves no room for error, but which allows glaze and sheen that the roughness of
canvas cannot. André Lhote painted a great deal with oil on paper and refers to it
in his Traité du paysage (Lhote: 1939).
In 1909, Lhote married Marguerite Hayet. The same year, he was invited to
show his work at Le Cercle d’Art moderne du Havre. This was an important exhibition for him: he was the sole young person amongst Dufy, Matisse, Marquet,
Rouault, Friesz, etc.
In 1910, Lhote, realising he had mastered his art, painted purposefully for
the Salons. At the Salon des Indépendants, he presented La douleur ou visages
devant le calvaire, which he described as “Thirteen crazy people” and “Jeux au
printemps”, “A garland of naked women in a landscape with trees and flowers”
(Lhote, Rivière, Fournier: 73) (Fig. 3).
Together with his wife, Lhote was invited to the Villa Médicis Libre, in Orgeville, Normandy, a philanthropic foundation for married artists. He stayed there
with the Raoul Dufy and the Jean Marchand couples and prepared his first solo
exhibition to take place in Paris, Galerie Druet, rue Royale, in November 1910.
Fifty-seven pieces were shown, thanks to the introduction of André Gide to
Eugène Druet. The preface to the exhibition was written by Charles Morice.16 The
exhibition turned out to be a huge success: André Gide and Maurice Denis were the
first to purchase works. The Paris art world and critics were all present at the opening and bought paintings … but Lhote, the shy provincial, unused to the sophistication, did not attend his own opening. He was at the Louvre, as always, copying the
works of the great masters. He regretted his absence there for the rest of his life.
In 1911, Lhote participated in the Salon des Indépendants, in room 40, which
together with room 41 was the Cubist room. The painter had set his style: the
14 Georges Rouault (1871-1958).
15 André Lhote wrote several important texts on Rouault: “Rouault,” L’Amour de l’art, no. 12,
December 1923, and “L’Exposition Georges Rouault aux Amis de l’art contemporain,” La NRF,
no. 251, August 1934.
16 Charles Morice (1860-1919) had been the friend and the biographer exegete of Paul Gauguin.
21
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 3: Lhote, André, Jeux au printemps, 1910, oil on canvas, 100 cm x 150 cm. © Archives
André Lhote © ADAGP
geometric construction of his works was more pronounced and his fiery temperament mellowed with Cubism. But he persisted in his desire to evoke human life
and landscapes. Inspired by medieval murals, works by Breughel and the primitives, he showed La Partie de Plaisir, a bacchanalia based on an invented story
by Alain-Fournier.17
At 26, Lhote was only just beginning to be recognised and the critics now included him in most art reports. Articles concerning him were seen in the Nouvelle Revue
Française, as well as in other revues. However he also faced criticism: by those who
followed an official academic approach, but he also found the hostility of Apollinaire
and friends, reproaching him for his attachment to a certain figuration and holding
against him his reference to archaic primitive images painters (Apollinaire: 1912).
17 The painting, 238 cm x 245 cm, belongs to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, a gift
from Simone A. Lhote in July 1968.
22
The Life of André Lhote
At the Salon d’Automne 1911, he sold Port de Bordeaux to a Swedish painter, Georg Pauli (Siden, Meister: 2017),18 who, drawn towards Cubism, requested
Lhote to teach him. Pauli was 62, Lhote, 26. The self-learned man became the
teacher, and teaching taught him a lot. Pauli, introduced Lhote to Prince Eugen of
Sweden in 1912, who became his student the following year, after having acquired
a second version of Port de Bordeaux. That year saw the beginning of a relationship between Lhote and Swedish painters and the start of his teaching activities.
Then, it could be said that Lhote entered Cubism in his own fashion, far from
initial analytical Cubism confined to pure abstraction. In 1912, he was invited to
participate with ten works in the famous exhibition La Section d’Or, at Galerie
La Boëtie.19
Lhote was open to the works of his contemporaries. He introduced his friends
to artists and sculptors in order for them to get to know each other and buy their
works. They went to Bourdelle, Rouault and later, in 1914, to Chagall. We can
read about this in his correspondence with Gabriel Frizeau, who bought works
from all of these artists (Lhote, Frizeau: 1914). 20
In 1913 his first private exhibition outside France was in Gothenburg.21 This
was followed by regular exhibitions in Sweden, as his privileged relations allowed
him to show works by fellows artists who were mobilised during the 1914-18 war.
Lhote considered his 1913 paintings as some of his most important (Fig. 4).
In 1914, Lhote was very soon declared unfit for service due to having choroidal
retinitis.22 Alain-Fournier was killed in action in September and Jacques Rivière
became a prisoner in Germany. These times of war evoke the theme of Pénélope
(Fig. 5).23
18 Georg Pauli (1855-1935).
19 The letter of invitation stipulated a maximum of ten works by each artist.
20 “The visit to Chagall is appointed for Friday morning with other painters who want to buy
Chagall’s works for themselves (Segonzac, La Fresnaye, Moreau).” (AL-GF)
21 Göteborgs Konstförening, private exhibition organized by G. Pauli. A specimen of Visages
devant le calvaire was sold, which is now in the Moderna Museet of Stockholm. However,
Lhote had also participated in foreign group exhibitions, such as in 1912 at the “Second postimpressionist exhibition,” at the Grafton Galleries in London.
22 Progressive lesions of retina.
23 Penelope, Ulysses’ wife in Homer’s Odyssey, symbol of the expectation of peace and the return
of the warriors.
23
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 4: Lhote, André, Escale, 1913, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 217 cm x 190 cm,
© Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
24
The Life of André Lhote
Fig. 5: Lhote, André, Pénélope, 1914, chinese ink on paper, © Archives André Lhote
© ADAGP
25
Dominique Bermann Martin
He was sent to the ports of the navy to make useful drawings to camouflage boats
and army installations.
A new friendship was formed with Jean Cocteau in 1915.24 Lhote introduced
him to the Bassin d’Arcachon in 1917. Henceforth, every year he went to Piquey25
with his friends Jacques Lipchitz, Gino Severini, Diego Rivera, etc.
In 1916, Lhote published the manifesto “Totalisme” in L’Élan (Lhote: 1916)26,
in which he advocated the use of geometry in works. The eye had to absorb figures and objects from different angles (profile and full face, for example), rigorous constructions, flat tones, but with research into added materials (sand, gravel,
etc.). All on the same plane, abolished perspective. No depth nor body width.
Everything flattened, identifying objects by their plastic signs. An example of
this expression is the work Rugby (Fig. 6) in the National Museum of Modern
Art Paris (MNAM).The pyramid movement of the players (Lhote calls it “solemn
phase”) frozen in the instant and the bright colours of the costumes lend themselves perfectly to geometry. Some ornamentations identify the elements of the
composition. The work is being reduced down to strict essentials, even the ball
is absent.
Lhote explained his totalistic vision in the Swedish revue Flamman (Lhote:
1917).27
Between 1916 and 1917, Lhote began to teach at the Parisian academies.
First at Atelier d’Étude in Boulevard Raspail and Atelier Libre, 55 Boulevard du
Montparnasse (Marthe Donas: 2016).28
From 1918, even with the architecture of his works remaining strictly observed,
the forms and figures were softened. That which was called “Return to order” was
especially a return to tradition. Hommage à Watteau (Fig. 7) is a manifesto in
24 Jean Cocteau 1889-1963.
25 Le Piquey, a small fishing port on the north bank of the Bassin d’Arcachon.
26 L’Élan, magazine created by Amédée Ozenfant in 1915. “Totalisme,” published in No. 9, is a
manifesto demanding the total freedom of the artist to use the various techniques according to
his needs: “Do not confine ourselves to any exclusive bias.” “Ne nous cantonnons dans aucun
parti-pris exclusif”
27 Flamman, an avant-garde magazine founded in Stockholm by G. Pauli, which Lhote regularly
attended. “Analys och argument” Flamman No. 3, March 1917.
28 The Belgian artist Marthe Donas studied with Lhote in 1917 at Atelier Libre.
26
The Life of André Lhote
Fig. 6: Lhote, André, Rugby, 1917, oil on canvas, 127 cm x 132.5 cm, Musée National
d’Art moderne Paris © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
painting: a woman seen from the back, painted in “ingresque” manner, sitting in
front of Harlequin (this geometric person is a Cubism symbol). She tears off his
mask to reveal his human face.
27
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 7: Lhote, André, Hommage à Watteau,1918, oil on canvas, 116 x 89 cm, coll. Petit
Palais de Genève, photo © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
28
The Life of André Lhote
Maturity 1919-1950
In June 1919, Lhote became the art critic for La Nouvelle Revue Française, after its
rebirth under the directorship of Jacques Rivière.
From 1918, he taught at the Académie Moderne, rue Notre Dame des Champs,
and in 1920, began his teaching at the Académie Montparnasse, also called the
‘Scandinavian Academy.’
From 1919, Lhote had Swedish students (Form och färg: 2017).29 In 1922, we
know that he joined his Swedish students in Beynac and Cenac in Dordogne to paint
landscapes. Norwegian painters (Engelstad: 2006), a group from Finland (Hildén:
1982),30 Yugoslavian and South Americans (Tarsila do Amaral and others) went to
study with him. Research has not yet been made concerning how many Japanese
painters followed his teaching. One student, Jutaro Kuroda,31 wrote to him often,
confirming the strong relationship between Lhote and Japan in 1923-30, showing
his works at the Society Nikwa, the Japanese equivalent of Salon des Indépendants.
In March 1925, Lhote opened his own academy, Académie André Lhote, at 18
rue d’Odessa (Passage du Départ) in Montparnasse.
Here we should mention Lhote’s pedagogical capacity. In some academies,
the posing model remained only a short time and often the model only posed
once a week. Lhote insisted on the posing model to stay throughout the week.
Most of the time, Lhote himself remained with his pupils and worked alongside
them, insisting on artisanal technical work. Without a doubt, this comes from his
own formation where, as a an autodidact, he had to find for himself simple brush
strokes, making colour pastes, as well as studying schemas of composition of the
masters in museums. He practiced reflexions on the aims of art with his students,
forming links, not by hierarchical standards to apprentice and teacher, but by sharing knowledge between people who share a mutual passion. Many of his students
were not younger than he was (Fig. 8).
29 See the catalogue of the exhibition “Form och färg, André Lhote och Svensk Kubism,”
Stockholm, Waldemarsudde Museum, September 2017 to January 2018. Nearly two-hundred
Swedish painters went to Paris to study with Lhote throughout his career.
30 Nearly forty painters from Finland had been students of Lhote.
31 J. Kuroda 1887-1970, was a teacher at the School of Fine Arts in Kyoto and was an active
member of the NIKWA society.
29
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig.8: Lhote’s academy in 1928, photo E.C. Templier, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
From 1928, Turkish painters began to attend the academy (Kuban: 2018).
In 1926, Lhote discovered the abandoned village of Mirmande in the Drôme.
He invited his students to go there in the summer to paint landscapes. This was the
beginning of his “field academies” to which he invited his students every summer.
The Australians Anne Dangar, Grace Crowley and Dorrit Black spent the summers of 1928-29 in Mirmande. Thus, paintings of Mirmande can be found in
Australia Lock Weir: /Adams: 2018).
During the 1920s, Lhote travelled extensively throughout Europe for exhibitions and conferences. He regularly invited his students to exhibit their work
with his own and wrote introductions for them.32 At that time, his style was
marked by painted scenes of popular life, and the 1930s introduced a more
32 For example, in 1926 the introduction to “Exposition de l’Académie André Lhote,” Paris, Galerie
Au Sacre du Printemps.
30
The Life of André Lhote
lyrical style, marked by curves, which Lhote referred to as his ‘Baroque’ style
(Fig. 9).
André Lhote regularly participated in the Venice Biennales and played an important part in debates that were agitating the art world of the 1930s. In Venice in
1934: “Contemporary arts and reality. Art and State.” In Paris from 1935 to 1936,
several debates called “La Querelle du Réalisme.”
In 1935, Lhote painted the signboard of the academy, made a series of
paintings and murals representing nudes (Baigneuses) and wrote the chapter
in L’Encyclopédie Française on the composition of painting (reproduction of
Baigneuses with an outline according to the Golden Section Fig. 10).
On 1st February 1936, Lhote gave an important conference in Paris’s Salle
Chopin-Pleyel: “Faut-il bruler le Louvre?” denouncing the poor conservation of
paintings in museums and preaching for a modernised museology.
Lhote travelled to Algiers where he exhibited at Galerie Minaret and gave a
conference at Salle Pierre Bordes.
In 1937, he was commissioned to paint two panels for the Palais de la Découverte for the Universal Exhibition: Gas and Coal products.
That same year, Simone Camin, who was to become his second wife in 1944,
opened Galerie Pittoresque in Boulevard Raspail, Paris, where Lhote students
regularly exhibited (Fig. 11).
In 1937, a new student appeared on his teaching horizon, the Egyptian Mohamed Naghi (1888-1956). This started an epistolary exchange on painting. Lhote
used to give him lessons by mail (Fig. 12).
Naghi often came with his sister, Effat, who was also a painter and Lhote’s student. Naghi, director of the School of Fine Arts in Cairo and later of the Egyptian
Academy in Rome, sent his students to the Academy Lhote. He instigated Lhote’s
travelling to Egypt in 1951 and 1952.
In 1938, André Lhote discovered Gordes in the Vaucluse, an abandoned village at that time. He bought a house there and invited friends and students. Henceforth, he divided his summer academies between Mirmande and Gordes.
With the arrival of the World War II, the painter took refuge in Gordes, where the
winters were more clement. In 1940, he enticed his friend there, Marc Chagall,
who bought a house there and remained until his exile to America. In 1940, the
31
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 9: Lhote, André, La Fête à Neuilly, 1932, oil on canvas, 116,8 x 88,9 cm, © Archives
André Lhote © ADAGP
32
The Life of André Lhote
Fig. 10: Lhote, André, Les Baigneuses, projet de fresque, 1935, oil on canvas, 42,5 x 100 cm,
© Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 11: Poster of La Galerie Pittoresque, 1937, ©
Archives André Lhote ©
ADAGP
33
Dominique Bermann Martin
Fig. 12: Mohamed Naghi,
letter, 1937, © Archives
André Lhote © ADAGP
tragic events influenced painting. Lhote returned to his series of Pénélope.33 Numerous artists who were refugees went to live in Mirmande and Gordes (Fig. 13).
33 Letter 21 November 1939, to Suzanne Camin-Bermann, concerning this Pénélope: “[…]
It has been waiting for its solution since 1915. It is not that it is difficult to paint a woman,
daydreaming and sad, forgetting her work and staring into space. What is difficult is to construct
a monumental figure, devoid of trivial character, it is the most difficult as it doesn’t mean wiping
away the wrinkles or simplifying the planes which would only be an imitating procedure, but to
invent a figure which has an expression without eyes, nose, mouth, which is neither a vague stain
nor a decorative simplification, but allusions more realistic than nature and leaning towards
architecture rather than painting. That is why I searched for the formula, without finding it,
during the last war and why I am still hunting. This is the moment to return to the problem which,
sinisterly, presents itself again. There is also the problem of colour. The red and blue dominate
for me, with white and black pushed back and only the tapestry has a colour of hope.
It is a gloomy painting, at least if I could make it gloomy. Finally, my great man would be Dumesnil
de La Tour, the most transposed of all French painters and I strive to find a version of light dark by
the flat tint.” Original letter text in French. English translation provided by the author.
34
The Life of André Lhote
Fig. 13: Lhote, André, Pénélope, 1939, oil on canvas, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
In 1943, after twenty years of legal and conjugal battling with his wife Marguerite, Lhote finally obtained a divorce and married Simone Camin in 1944. As after
World War I, once peace returned, Lhote’s palette cleared and the subjects became
more cheerful.
35
Dominique Bermann Martin
From 1946, he communicated with Brazilian painters including Portinari,
whom he knew in the twenties and wrote columns for a revue in Sao Paulo (Estado do Sao Paulo).
In 1948, Lhote bought a house in La Cadière d’Azur, in the Var. An ancient village perched in the vineyards overlooking the sea. The summers henceforth were
spent successively in the three villages, surrounded by students and family. Salah
Yousry, an Egyptian student, often went to La Cadière. In 1948, an Indian painter,
J. Sabavala, and the Pakistani Shakir Ali joined the academy.
1950-1961 The Last Period
In the winter of 1951, Lhote was invited to Egypt by the poet Moenis Taha Hussein, the Egyptian minister of fine arts, and Mohamed Naghi, to give conferences
and participate in the jury for the Ismael painting prize. Lhote stayed in Cairo,
met with his Egyptian students, gave lessons and exhibited in Alexandria, Galerie
l’Atelier (Fig. 14).
Very impressed by Theban painting, Lhote decided to devote a book to it
(Lhote: 1954) and returned to Egypt the following year.
In the summer of 1952, Lhote was invited to Brazil for conferences and to
initiate an academy in Rio de Janeiro, “L’Atelier Montparnasse.”
After Brazil, his painting became more stylish and abstract. “Abstraction
représentative” (Lhote: 1955) is the definition he used in 1954 at the Venice Biennale.
He received the Grand Prix National des Arts in 1956, which was the beginning of tributes, honours and retrospectives. In 1958, an exhibition retrospective
of his work was given at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.
With age and an illness not yet known, his sight having significantly diminished, Lhote became less careful with his palette, his paste and colours became
thicker and stronger.
André Lhote taught in his academy and painted in summer with students in the
villages until 1960.
After returning to Le Piquey, the holiday place of his youth, André Lhote died in
Paris on 24 January 1962.
36
The Life of André Lhote
Fig. 14: Lhote, André, Palmiers à Thèbes, 1952, oil on canvas, 88,6 x 116,3 cm,
© Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
References
-----André Lhote, Alain-Fournier, Jacques Rivière, La Peinture, le coeur et l’esprit,
correspondance inédite 1907-1924, William Blake and Co et Musée des Beaux-arts
de Bordeaux, 1986.
-----André Lhote et ses élèves yougoslaves, Belgrade National Museum, 1974.
-----André Lhote in Finland, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Helsinki, 1982.
Adams, Bruce, Lock Weir, Tracey, Missionaries of Modernism: The Women Artists Who
Took André Lhote’s Art and Teachings to Australia: Dorrit Black, Grace Crowley and
Anne Dangar. contribution to this volume.
37
Dominique Bermann Martin
Apollinaire, Guillaume, Le Petit Bleu, 20 March 1912, and L’Intransigeant, 25 March
1912.
Daloze Marcel et al., Marthe Donas et l’avant-garde Parisienne (1916-1921), Musée
Marthe Donas 2016, Iettre, Belgium, 2016.
Greet, Michele, Transatlantic Encounters, New Haven/London: Yale University Press,
2018.
Kuban, Zeynep, “An Overview of the Turkish Students Attending the Académie André
Lhote,” contribution to this volume.
Lhote, André, Letter to G. Frizeau, March 1914.
Lhote, André, “Totalisme,” in L’Élan, no. 9, 1916.
Lhote, André, “Analys och argument,” in Flamman, No. 3, March 1917.
Lhote, André, Traité du paysage, Paris, Floury, 1939.
Lhote, André, Les Chefs d’oeuvre de la peinture égyptienne, Paris, Hachette, 1954.
Lhote, André, De l’Abstraction représentative, Florence, Sansoni, 1955.
Meister, Anna, Sidén, Karin, (eds.) Form och Färg. André Lhote och Svensk Kubism, Prins
Eugens Waldemarsudde, 2017.
Moueix, Jean-François, Un amateur d’art éclairé à Bordeaux, Gabriel Frizeau 18701938, postgraduate thesis in art history, Bordeaux, 1969.
Svein A.H. Engelstad, Ecole de Paris og Norge, Oslo, Universitetsbiblioteket, 2006.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Atelier Courbaterre Bordeaux, photography, 1898, in front, young André Lhote. ©
Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 2: Lhote, André, Portrait d’Alain-Fournier, 1912, pencil drawing on paper,
34 x 22 cm. © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 3: Lhote, André, Jeux au printemps, 1910, oil on canvas, 100 cm x 150 cm.
© Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 4: Lhote, André, Escale, 1913, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 217 cm x 190 cm,
© Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 5: Lhote, André, Pénélope, 1914, chinese ink on paper, © Archives André Lhote
© ADAGP
38
The Life of André Lhote
Fig. 6: Lhote, André, Rugby, 1917, oil on canvas, 127 cm x 132.5 cm, Musée National
d’Art moderne Paris © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 7: Lhote, André, Hommage à Watteau, 1918, oil on canvas, 116 x 89 cm, coll. Petit
Palais de Genève, photo © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 8: Lhote’s academy in 1928, photo E.C. Templier, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 9: Lhote, André, La Fête à Neuilly,1932, oil on canvas, 116,8 x 88,9 cm, © Archives
André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 10: Lhote, André, Les Baigneuses, projet de fresque, 1935, oil on canvas, 42,5 x
100 cm, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 11: Poster of La Galerie Pittoresque, 1937, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 12: Mohamed Naghi, letter, 1937, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 13: Lhote, André, Pénélope, 1939, oil on canvas, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
Fig. 14: Lhote, André, Palmiers à Thèbes, 1952, oil on canvas, 88,6 x 116,3 cm, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
39
From Paris to Mirmande, International Aspects of
Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s Writings and
Correspondance
Fanny Drugeon
ABSTRACT
The program of the Lhote academy was written on a blackboard, as a manifesto: “It is forbidden to talk about one’s own personality and to worry about
it before learning one’s trade. [...] Feeling alone is personal; technique is transmissible through the centuries; it is independent of the person [...] Make no
confusion between influence and eclecticism.”1 This paper will discuss the way
André Lhote managed to construct a cosmopolitan feeling within his academy,
from Paris to Mirmande. Through his correspondence and his writings, we will
discover how he intended to build a pedagogy without frontiers.
“It is forbidden to talk about one’s own personality and to worry about it before learning one’s trade. [...] Feeling alone is personal; technique is transmissible
through the centuries; it is independent of the person [...] Make no confusion between influence and eclecticism” (Archives André Lhote).2
I would like to begin with the words that welcomed the students when they attended André Lhote’s academy: the program that Lhote had written on a blackboard, as a manifesto.
Both theoretician and pedagogue, André Lhote founded his academy in rue
d’Odessa in March 1925, in the well-known Montparnasse. When the artist died
1
2
“Il est interdit de parler de sa personnalité et de s’en inquiéter avant d’avoir appris son métier.
[…] Le sentiment seul est personnel ; la technique est transmissible à travers les siècles ; elle est
indépendante de la personne […] Ne pas confondre influence et éclectisme.” All English translations in this text are provided by the author.
Ibidem.
41
Fanny Drugeon
in 1962, the Lhote academy was sold to Henri Goetz. Between these two dates,
many artists went through the workshop and followed a teaching program that
was based mainly on the two treatises of the artist, Traité du paysage and Traité
de la figure.
The majority of the students were foreign and mostly women, Lhote exerted
great influence – in a positive but also in a negative way, with students rejecting
his teaching. He had to deal with very different kinds of students, for example
with Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone in the 1920’s, who worked on the passage from
an abstract cubism to an Irish one, with the Australian modernists, with Tarsila do
Amaral, or with Egyptian artists in the 1950’s.
This paper will discuss the way André Lhote managed to construct a cosmopolitan ambiance within his academy. He managed to establish an international network through his students and a system of reciprocal influence appeared, through
the circulation of models, the role of politics, and the relativity of modernity.
Reflecting on his teaching notes, on selected correspondences throughout his
career and his travels and his writings in general I would like to underline the way
he intentionally set out to build a pedagogy without borders.
Lhote was self-taught. He became a teacher despite all his hatred against the École
des beaux-arts, or maybe because of this hatred. He established a pedagogy that
required a significant openness. He himself had an open mind: open to the past,
the present, the future. In a photograph taken by Willy Ronis, we see the artist from behind, holding an empty frame in front of the heights of Gordes, in
1947. This photograph is a testimony of the landscape lessons that Lhote gave
in Gordes: the painting was a world. He was also open to the ailleurs. In another
photograph, taken by Paul Almasy in 1952, we can see André Lhote among his
collection of primitive art, holding a mask. He was a great collector, seeing in the
non-occidental art a strong plastic power. Reproducing a dance instrument from
the New Guinea in his Traité de la Figure, he writes enthusiastically about “the
scholarly and magical turmoil” (Lhote 1950: 217).3
Teaching is not an occasional activity for Lhote. From 1908, he gave lessons
of drawing and painting in Bordeaux, then at the Montparnasse Academy at 35
3
42
“remous savants et magiques.”
From Paris to Mirmande, International Aspects of Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s Writings
rue du Départ from 1917 to 1925, and finally opened the Lhote academy, on
March 30, 1925, rue d’Odessa, on the heights of Montparnasse.
At his Montparnasse academy, classes would take place in the morning, from
8:30 am to noon, mixing live models, drawing, painting and sculpture. Correction took place on Thursday. During the afternoons, from 1.30 pm to 5 pm, the
program was similar.
The program was precise and was nourished by Lhote’s contemporary activity
as an art critic. He specifies in this program:
“In addition to the technical knowledge provided by this special course, it is necessary to count: 1 A training towards more agility in the overall drawing - 2 A
training to paint synthetically, by large parties of shadow and light, two things
absolutely necessary, difficult to acquire, and that in almost all painters is lacking”
(Archives André Lhote).4
Lhote also gives the opportunity to his students to benefit from his advantages as
an art critic, for example for the acquisition of books or reproductions of works
of art.
I would like to insist on an important point: students were encouraged to offer
any criticism they had of the program, “It will always be taken into account the
wishes of the majority” (Archives André Lhote),5 writes Lhote. During the summer, the academy is shifted to the countryside, the teaching classes are then more
informal and freer, in a spirit of exchange. It must be pointed out, moreover, that
in his notes, Lhote wrote several times that one should rather speak of “collaborators” than pupils, in a spirit of reciprocity.
The Lhote academy is definitely international, and also open to women – access to the École des beaux-arts was still complicated for women (Maingon 2010:
222-223; Drugeon 2014: 107-115). Dominique Bermann-Martin is currently
working on an extensive chronological evolution of the different nationalities of
4
5
“En plus des connaissances techniques procurées par ce cours spécial, il faut compter : 1 Un
entrainement vers plus d’agilité dans le dessin d’ensemble – 2 Un entrainement à peindre
synthétiquement, par grands partis d’ombre et de lumière, deux choses absolument nécessaires,
difficiles à acquérir, et qui manquent à la presque totalité des peintres.”
“Il sera toujours tenu compte des désirs de la majorité.”
43
Fanny Drugeon
Lhote’s pupils. The fact is that this cosmopolitanism is both a major feature of the
Lhote academy and almost an anecdote in its teaching. André Lhote’s contemporary, Fernand Léger, who had a school until 1953 stated for his own academy:
“Hundreds of students went there. In the end, there were all races, Chinese, Japanese, Blacks, Americans. [...] As for me, I had to struggle with all the influences
that they carried in them. [...] I needed interpreters, secretaries. This atmosphere
was extraordinary” (Vallier 1982: 86).6
However, almost no trace of these questions can be found in the notes of André
Lhote, with the exception of the academy advertisement translated in English.
The teaching of André Lhote is intended to be completely plastic and universal. Here is one example of his lesson regarding the nude:
“You are not in front of two models to paint two naked women, with their excess
of muscles, bones, folds and hairs. You are in front of two different women whose
differences must be fixed with the minimum of means. The more reduced your
means will be, the more pure your interpretation will be. [...] Any vulgar pictures
will receive my contempt.”7
Looking at the works of the past and present is strongly advised, while being wary
not to become too eclectic. As mentioned in the introduction, Lhote writes on the
blackboard: “Do not confuse influences and eclecticism” (Archives André Lhote)
and he points out that it is most important to belong to one’s own time.
And yet, Lhote announces to his students in 1947: “I will try to be an eclectic
teacher” (Archives André Lhote), pointing out that for him there exists an inferior
6
7
44
“Des centaines d’élèves y sont passés. À la fin il y en avait de toutes les races, des Chinois,
des Japonais, des Noirs, des Américains. […] Quant à moi, j’avais à me débattre dans toutes
les influences qu’ils portaient en eux. […] J’avais besoin d’interprètes, de secrétaires. C’était
extraordinaire cette atmosphère.”
“Vous n’êtes pas devant deux modèles pour peindre deux femmes nues, avec leurs excès de
muscles, d’os, de plis et de poils. Vous êtes devant deux femmes différentes dont il faut fixer les
différences avec le minimum de moyens. Plus vos moyens seront réduits, plus votre interprétation
sera pure. […] Je poursuivrai de mon mépris les tableaux vulgaires.”
From Paris to Mirmande, International Aspects of Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s Writings
eclecticism, passive, and a superior eclecticism, active, which is related to the
knowledge of the history of art, of western art, yet not entirely restricted to it.
“My role will be to indicate to each one of you the window he has to open, the barrier he has to turn over to breathe according to the capacity of his lungs” (Archives
André Lhote).8
Freedom of research is above everything, while “combating specialization” (Archives André Lhote). He strongly opposed teaching any student who came with a
specialization in landscape, nude, etc.
A letter written by one of his Australian students, Evelyn W. Syme, testifies of
this atmosphere. She wrote in French to Lhote in February 1930:
“I must have often looked extremely stupid, unable to do what you explain so
clearly, but still, I assure you that you gave me ideas about the essential nature of
painting. [...] And as I know you cannot know all the names of your many students,
I must add that I am the big Australian girl who wore a brown blouse and wrote in
English the corrections of half a dozen American boys and American girls who did
not understand French yet” (Archives André Lhote).9
An abundance of correspondence with his students sheds light on the contribution
of Lhote’s Parisian teaching class or of the freer ones in Gordes or Mirmande.
Other students wrote about the Academy during interviews or in their diaries, one
of which is the frequently cited one by Tarsila do Amaral, her 1952 essay “Recordações de Paris” (Recollections of Paris):
8
9
“Mon rôle consistera à indiquer à chacun d’entre vous la fenêtre qu’il doit ouvrir, la barrière qu’il
doit renverser pour respirer selon la capacité de ses poumons.”
“j’ai dû paraître souvent extrêmement stupide, ne pouvant pas faire ce que vous expliquez avec
tant de netteté, mais quand même, je vous assure que vous m’avez donné des idées sur la nature
essentielle de la peinture. […] Et comme je sais que vous ne pouvez pas savoir tous les noms
de vos nombreux élèves, je dois ajouter que je suis la grande australienne qui portait une blouse
brune et qui écrivait en anglais les corrections d’une demi-douzaine des Américains et des
Américaines qui ne comprennent pas encore le français.”
45
Fanny Drugeon
“In December of that same year of 1922, I returned to Paris contaminated by revolutionary ideas. I hurried off to Lhote and found him in the wooden shed in Montparnasse, where he held his painting class. There he was, surrounded by students
– a large and very congenial family. Everything seemed mysterious. I remember
how avidly I would listen to his lessons. I can still see the reproductions of Michelangelo glued to the walls as standards for good draftsmanship: Lhote became the
bridge between Classicism and Modernism. Short in stature, with intelligent eyes,
always obliging, he explained in his southern accent how it was possible to adapt
the technique and the composition methods of past masters to the demands of contemporary art.” (Tarsila 1950: 46-47; L’Allessandro/Pérez-Oramas 2018: 171).10
Excerpts from notes found in the archive provide an idea of the atmosphere that
emanated from the course and the advice given. Some examples date from April
1950:
“If I have sown some worries in your souls, I am delighted”
“Not too much wealth, simplify!”
“You have to talk by signs”
“Here we leave abstraction for anecdotal painting”
“The pencil is smart. The brush is silly”
“All the painting is in the passage”
And testifying to his grinning sense of humor “Look at this line, it is miserable”
“I saw everyone. I finished suffering”
He is even ironic with himself: “There are two guys who wrote a landscape treatise. There is da Vinci and me. Mine is not worth the other, but it is more topical”
(Archives André Lhote).11
10 Published in the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition edited by Stephanie d’Alessandro
and Luis Pérez-Oramas, Tarsila do Amaral. Inventing modern art in Brazil, The Art Institute of
Chicago / The Museum of Modern Art, New York, December, 2018, p.171.
11 “Si j’ai semé quelques inquiétudes dans vos âmes, j’en suis ravi;” “Pas trop de richesses,
simplifiez!;” “Il faut parler par signes;” “Ici nous quittons l’abstraction pour la peinture
anecdotique;” “Le crayon est intelligent. Le pinceau est idiot;” “Toute la peinture est dans le
passage;” “Regardez cette droite comme elle est misérable;” “J’ai vu tout le monde. J’ai fini de
souffrir;” “Il y a deux types qui ont écrit le traité du paysage. Il y a Vinci et moi. Le mien ne vaut
pas l’autre, mais il est plus d’actualité.”
46
From Paris to Mirmande, International Aspects of Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s Writings
The essence of his teaching lies in his two treatises, le Traité du paysage,
published in 1939, and Traité de la figure, published in 1950. Moreover, Lhote’s
aim was to teach students as well as the public. At conferences he encouraged his
audience to look at the work of art not passively, but with all the senses sharpened.
Is not Lhote the author of the article with the revealing title “Of the plastic use of
love at first sight?”
“Trying to introduce you to the subjective world in which these painters work, this
is my daring aim [...] I do not claim to instruct you, but at most I would like to
awaken in you a desire for some curiosities” (Archives André Lhote).12
Lhote’s travels enabled him to continue the exchanges he had established during
his classes in France. On May 12, 1947, for example, he received a letter from
Mrs. Sati J. CHAKER, Cairo:
“In 1938 when I spent my holidays in France I waited in Paris for your return from
the countryside to take painting lessons in your academy. We were forced to return
home because of Hitler (Munich). Now I would like to take a lot of lessons this
summer. Mr. Salinas advised me if possible to follow your academy to the countryside. For me it would be ideal because I could take lessons and at the same time
be in the countryside” (Archives André Lhote).13
During the winter of 1951-1952, he was invited by Naghi Bey, Director of Fine
Arts of Egypt to give a lecture at the Cairo Academy. The friendship between
the two dates back to the 1920s, when Lhote met Mohammed Naghi Bey (18881956), nicknamed the “Egyptian impressionist.” Naghi Bey had come to study
12 “Essayer de vous introduire dans le monde subjectif où travaillent ces peintres, tel est mon audacieux
dessein […] Je n‘ai d‘ailleurs pas la prétention de vous instruire, mais tout au plus le désir d‘éveiller
en vous quelques curiosités.” “Nature-Peinture, peinture-poésie,” lecture at the Collège de France,
17 May 1923.
13 “En 1938 lorsque je passai mes vacances en France j’attendai [sic] à Paris votre retour de la
campagne pour pouvoir prendre des leçons de peinture dans votre académie. Nous étions forcés
de retourner chez nous à cause de Hitler [sic] (Munich). Maintenant je voudrai beaucoup prendre
des leçons cet été. Mr Salinas m’a conseillé si possible de suivre votre cour à la campagne. Pour
moi ça serait idéal car je pourrait [sic] prendre des leçons en même temps être à la campagne.”
47
Fanny Drugeon
with Monet, whom he met in 1918. He then entered Lhote’s academy and followed him between 1937 and 1955 pursuing courses in Paris, Mirmande and
Gordes.
This teaching continued through correspondence. They kept in touch until
the arrival of the artist and theorist in Egypt in the late1950s. His sister, Effat
Naghi, was also a painter and attended Lhote’s classes in the late 1940s, notably
in Gordes. Lhote made 2 trips to Cairo and Alexandria in 1950 and 1951 respectively. He had many students, his correspondence testifies, and he gave a number
of lectures. These trips were important, in his lecture notes, he repeated several
times the theme:
“All that matters is Egyptian. It must be royal as drawing” (Archives André Lhote).
Finally, the most beautiful testimony of Lhote as a teacher is this conclusion to
these notes on his lessons:
“I would be an ungrateful person, if I did not add that of all these students, I am
the one who learns the most things. Indeed, by dint of abandoning in the company
of these charming comrades, the most diverse pictorial problems, by touching up
the most different works, I was forced to go around all the pictorial techniques
possible. I owe a great deal to those whom I teach, which is why I was tempted a
moment ago to call them my collaborators. If one asked me one day why I teach, I
could answer without hesitation: ‘to learn better’” (Archives André Lhote).14
14 “Je serais un ingrat, si je n’ajoutais pas que de tous ces élèves, c’est moi qui apprend le plus
de choses. En effet, à force d’abandonner en la compagnie de ces charmants camarades, les
problèmes picturaux les plus divers, à force de retoucher les œuvres les plus différentes, j’ai
été obligé de faire le tour de toutes les techniques picturales possibles. Je dois beaucoup à ceux
que j’instruis, c’est pourquoi j’étais tenté tout à l’heure de les appeler mes collaborateurs. Si
l’on me demandait un jour pourquoi j’enseigne, je pourrais répondre sans hésiter : ‘pour mieux
apprendre’.”
48
From Paris to Mirmande, International Aspects of Lhote’s Academy through Lhote’s Writings
Acknowledgements
I would like to warmly thank Dominique Bermann-Martin who let me have
access to the Lhote archives and who shared generously her knowledge about
André Lhote; Zeynep Kuban and Simone Wille for this stimulating project;
and Julie Robarts for her precious help.
References
Drugeon, Fanny, “Aurelie Nemours, la transmission paradoxale,” Bonnet, A. / Lavie, J. /
Noirot, J. (ed.), Art et transmission. Les secrets d’ateliers aux XXe et XXIe siècles.
Rennes 2014.
Lhote, André, Traité du paysage, Paris 1939.
Lhote, André, Traité de la figure, Paris 1950.
Maingon, Claire, “Les élèves d’André Lhote et de Fernand Léger: un cosmopolitisme
multiculturel et artistique,” Bonnet, A. / Pire, J.-M. / Poulot, D. (ed.), L’éducation
artistique en France. Du modèle académique et scolaire aux pratiques actuelles,
XVIIIe – XXIe siècles. Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2010.
Vallier, Dora, “La vie fait l’œuvre de Fernand Léger,” L’Intérieur de l’art. Paris 1982.
49
Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
Michele Greet
ABSTRACT
André Lhote’s academy held special appeal for students from Latin America;
and his unique approach to teaching had a significant impact on the development of modernism in the region. At least twenty-seven Latin American artists
studied with Lhote between the wars. His academy provided one of the few
opportunities for artists to work with an instructor who embraced a specific
theoretical vision. He imparted a reasoned and structured means to achieve
modernism, establishing a method to build on the past without entirely rejecting tradition. While many Latin American artists eventually broke free from
Lhote’s method, it served as an archetype of theory based teaching. Not only did
the Académie Lhote provide a contact zone for Latin American artists from different countries, it compelled artists to contemplate the very notion of method
and its implications in relation to past, present, and future artistic production.
Independent art academies, conceived as alternatives to the conservative École
nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, began cropping up in Montparnasse in the
late 19th century. By the mid–1920s artists could choose from a variety of schools
including the Académie Julian, the Académie Colarossi, the Académie de la
Grand Chaumière, the Académie Ranson, the Académie Moderne, the Académie
Montparnasse and the Académie André Lhote, as well as private lessons in artists’
studios. These schools were unique because they did not require entrance exams
and accepted artists of different genders, ethnicities, and national backgrounds.
Fees were reasonable and classes flexible; students could often simply pay a daily
or monthly fee to draw from a live model, and pay an additional fee to receive
weekly feedback from the professor of record. For some, these schools were the
only alternative because they could not afford to pay a model to come to a private
studio (Carpentier 1957: 337). Often artists did not follow a curriculum at one
51
Michele Greet
school, but rather took a sampling of classes with different teachers at several
of the academies, sometimes following a favoured teacher from one location to
another.
While Latin American artists show up on the rosters of most of the schools in
Montparnasse, André Lhote’s academy held special appeal for students from Latin America; and his unique approach to teaching had a significant impact on the
development of modernism in the region. What distinguished Lhote’s academy
from the other independent schools in Montparnasse was that he was a prolific
theoretician in addition to being a renowned artist. Extremely well known and
respected during his own time, Lhote’s work declined in popularity after World
War II, and his importance as a teacher and theoretician is often ignored in writings on European modernism. With the recent scholarly attention being paid to
the so-called “call to order” – a movement in European art after World War I that
promoted traditional approaches to art making and tempered the radical practices
of the avant-garde – Lhote is starting to be re-positioned as an influential figure
between the wars (Chaos & Classicism 2010: Golan 1995). Beginning in 1919,
his essays appeared frequently in French and British journals, and he based his
teaching soundly in the application of the theories he articulated there (Lhote
1919, 1920, 1920b, 1924, 1924b). Students were drawn to his teaching because it
was grounded in a specific set of ideas about art making that were at once modern
and rooted in tradition. Because Lhote promoted a specific set of principles for
structuring a composition, many artists struggled to regain autonomy after studying with the master, however.
While Lhote had experimented with cubism in the 1910s, he did not consider
himself a cubist, and by the 1920s he was attempting to distance himself from the
movement (Lhote 2003: 102). In his essays Lhote downplayed his engagement
with cubism and the artists of Léonce Rosenberg’s gallery, by relegating cubism
to a previous historical moment and deeming it only useful in the present as a
formal exercise. For him, cubist techniques were a means to structure the pictorial
surface, but not an end in themselves. Lhote advanced the idea of a great French
tradition and greatly admired artists such as David, Ingres, Seurat, and especially Cézanne. Yet, he abhorred artists who simply aimed to imitate nature (that is
the Impressionists); rather he felt that artists should strive to find the underlying
rhythm and structure of a composition based on an intuitive and emotional re52
Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
sponse to nature. Artists should not paint what they see, but rather compose and
organize the canvas based on notions of balance and order. As Lhote asserted: “I
distrust working from formulas so much that never would I permit myself to draw
a figure or a landscape ‘by heart,’ like I could do if I wanted. In drawing or painting, I try to follow the deformations of objects as accurately as possible, for which
I cannot assume responsibility. It is this subconscious operation that gives my
work soul, if it must have one, which is later reviewed and ‘put in order.’ Creating
is always organizing chaos.” (Guenne 1926: 181).
In his teaching Lhote encouraged students to analyse a visual source, re-organizing it to coincide with the structural logic of the flat surface of the canvas. Artists should strive to establish a coherent organization for the entire composition,
not to replicate individual elements of the natural world. For Lhote that organization should be based on essential geometries rather than light or colour (Lhote
2003: 106-107; Snelgrove 1933; Lhote, Leonard Hutton Galleries, and Robbins
1976). When using chiaroscuro “we must be careful to distribute (according to
the rhythms that we will discuss later), an equal amount of light and shadow”
(Lhote unpublished).1 Since this technique did not proscribe a specific visual result it appealed to myriad students as a means to arrive at their own artistic vision.
Lhote’s approach most likely held great draw for art students from Latin America
because it represented a middle ground. It was not a radical rejection of tradition,
which Latin American art students were only just discovering, but rather a means
to build upon and update that classical tradition without disavowing a link to the
past.
While Lhote had been teaching at various Montparnasse academies since
1915, he opened his own art school in 1925 at 18, rue Odessa, which he ran until 1962 (Lhote 2003: 102).2 André Warnod described Lhote’s new accommodations: “The light pink walls are decorated with some paintings and photographs
of masterpieces; two models pose at the same time to permit the students to learn
1
2
Lhote starts by discussing the flaws in the teaching at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and then goes
on to discuss works by Rembrandt, van Gogh, and Bonnat.
Lhote taught at L’Académie Montparnasse from 1917–1925, at L’Académie Moderne from
1918–1920, at L’Atelier d’études 1920–1921, and L’Académie de la rue du Départ from 1921–
1925. In 1927, he also started a summer program in the small village of Mirmande (near Valence)
where he also took students to teach plein air painting.
53
Michele Greet
composition, the portrait class is held in an addition, and in a special small room
[Demetrios] Galanis comes to teach the art of engraving twice a week” (Warnod
1925: 219). The school offered classes in the nude, portraiture, and still life painting, and every three months there was a special course in composition that lasted
for two weeks. Like the other schools in Montparnasse, admission was open and
students paid a monthly fee. Typically, on Mondays Lhote would offer a demonstration and set the model’s pose for the week. Students were then free to depict
the model however they pleased in whichever medium they wished, and could
even set up their own still lifes (Lhote 2003: 113-116). Despite his emphasis on
freedom of interpretation, however, Lhote insisted that his students work from a
model rather than simply inventing scenes. But he did not advocate naturalistic
representation: “You want to reproduce the model which is wrong. The model is
absolutely in the wrong. It is only there for you to react to.” (Snelgrove 1933: 69;
Guenne 1926: 181). Lhote would return to the classroom on Thursday mornings
and Friday afternoons to offer corrections, which he would tailor to each individual student (Lhote 2003: 116).
Through his teaching Lhote developed strong connections with Latin American artists from all over the region, and correspondence from several of these
artists is preserved in his archives. In addition to his early friendship with Diego
Rivera, at least twenty-seven Latin American artists studied with Lhote between
the wars, many of whom took his teachings as the basis for modernist production
in the Americas. His methods were particularly influential with Brazilian and Argentinean artists. Through his connections with Tarsila do Amaral and other Brazilian artists and intellectuals, Lhote’s paintings were exhibited in Brazil several
times between the wars (Fundación Juan March 2009: 205-206).3 And many of
3
54
Lhote’s work was first shown in Brazil in 1930 in the exhibition L’Ecole de Paris au Brésil
organized by the French journal Montparnasse, for which Rego Monteiro was editor. The
exhibition included about 60 paintings, watercolors, and drawings by artists such as Blanchard,
Braque, Derain, Dufy, Foujita, Gleizes, Gris, Gromaire, Herbin, Laurens, Le Fauconnier, Léger,
Lhote, Masson, Matisse, Monteiro, Picasso, Rendon, Severini, Vlaminck, and Zak. The January
1930 issue of Montparnasse served as a catalogue. Lhote’s paintings were also included in an
exhibition of painting, sculpture, and architecture, SPAM: Primeira exposição de arte moderna,
pintura, escultura, arquitetura, held from May–April 1933 in São Paulo. The exhibition included
100 works by Lhote, Malfatti, Arnaldo Barbosa, Brancusi, Brécheret, de Chirico, Le Corbusier,
Szako, Delaunay, Dufy, Esther Bessel, Foujita, Gleizes, Gobbis, Gomide, Hugo Adami, Jenny
Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
the artists of the so-called Grupo de Paris in Buenos Aires arrived at their particular vision of modernism via study with Lhote (López Anaya 1997: 146).4 Lhote
reviewed Uruguayan artist Pedro Figari’s 1923 exhibition, and Ecuadorian artist
Pedro Léon disseminated Lhote’s ideas in his book on modern art in which he
cited Lhote extensively (Lhote 1923: 772; Léon Donoso 1938). His work was also
included in an exhibition of modern French art in Colombia in 1922, in Uruguay
in 1935, and in 1939 Carmen de las Casas brought a selection of Lhote’s paintings to Venezuela for sale and exhibition (La Sociedad de Embellesimiento 1922;
Amigos del arte 1935; Picón-Salas and Palenzuela 2007: 121-123).5 Even after
World War II, Lhote maintained his ties to Latin America, founding an academy
in Rio de Janeiro in 1952 and hosting numerous Brazilian artists at his French
school.
One of Lhote’s first Latin American students and greatest supporters was Tarsila do Amaral. While Amaral studied with Lhote at L’Académie de la rue du
Départ from March to June 1923, before he established his own academy, she
maintained contact with the French artist for many years.6 During her studies with
Lhote, Amaral absorbed his methodology, which is clearly evident in paintings
done under his tutelage such as Two Models (Fig. 1). In this painting Amaral has
reduced the figures to their essential geometries, employing cubist facets to create
an overall rhythm that unites figure and ground. The diagonal of the roof on the
left echoes the diagonals in the drapery and the figure’s arm, establishing a geo-
4
5
6
K. Segall, John Graz, Juan Gris, Laurencin, Lasar Segall, Léger, Lipschitz, Mussia Pinto Alves,
Picasso, Pompon, Regina Graz, Rossi Osir, Sará Affonso, Amaral, Vuillard, Warchavchik, Wasth,
and Rodrigues. In the introduction Mario Andrade called Lhote one of three world renowned
artists in the show. The other two were Picasso and Lasar Segall.
This group, which exhibited together at Amigos del Arte after their return from Paris in 1928,
included Horacio Butler, Aquiles Badí, Alfredo Bigatti. Lino Spilimbergo, Hector Basaldúa,
Victor Pissarro, Alberto Morera, Antonio Berni, and Raquel Forner joined the group in 1929.
Berni remembered Lhote fondly in a newspaper interview (Maugis 1962).
The Bogotá and Caracas catalogues are in the Lhote Archives as is a full list of the 35 paintings
by Lhote sent to Venezuela.
The history of this academy is a bit unclear. According to Warnod, it seems that Lhote ran
the Académie de la rue du Départ and moved to the 18, rue Odessa location in 1925, turning
the Départ location over to Kisling and Metzinger. “This academy was still, last year (1924),
installed in a court of la rue du Départ; to get there it was necessary to climb a steep staircase like
a ladder in a henhouse; but now a new location, on rue d’Odessa, is much more comfortable”
(Warnod 1925: 219).
55
Michele Greet
Fig. 1: Amaral, Tarsila do (1886-1973), Two Models, 1923, Oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm.
Private collection. © Luciana Rangel / photograph by Romulo Fialdini e Milene Rinaldi.
56
Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
metric order to the composition. She has emphasized figural distortion, allowing
a flattened breast, curved torso, or angular knee to create its own geometric form
that stretches the limits of naturalistic representation. Colour is clearly superfluous, reduced to muted tones that are secondary to formal arrangement. Whereas
Amaral quickly diverged from such a literal interpretation of Lhote’s teaching,
she employed his ideas about establishing equilibrium and stability in a composition as the basis for creating her own unique style (Amaral 2003: 207). Writing in
1952 Amaral still remembered with awe the impact Lhote’s teachings had on her
and explains his approach: “In December of this same year of 1922, I returned to
Paris contaminated with revolutionary ideas. I ran to Lhote and found him in the
big wooden shed in Montparnasse where he gave his painting class. There he was,
surrounded by students—one big, happy family. Everything seemed mysterious
to me. I remember how keenly I listened to his lessons. I can still see the Michelangelo reproductions glued to the walls as examples of good drawing: Lhote
became the link between Classicism and Modernism. Small in stature, with intelligent eyes, always agreeable, he explained in his southern accent how we could
adapt the technique and compositional methods of the old masters to the demands
of contemporary art” (Fundación Juan March 2009: 48-49).
Not only did Amaral respect Lhote as a teacher, she also viewed him as a leading modernist, collecting his paintings along with those of Picasso, Miró, Picabia,
and Delaunay. Her first acquisition by Lhote was Three Female Nudes (ca. 1920)
and in 1924 she purchased Football for 2500 francs for her friend the Brazilian
poet and novelist Mario de Andrade’s São Paulo home (Fig. 2).7 The painting is
modern in both technique and subject matter. Sports had emerged as a popular
subject of artistic exploration in conjunction with the 1924 Olympic games in Paris. Soccer, in particular, had strong contemporary relevance because Uruguay, the
only South American participant in the tournament, had won the gold medal. In
Football, Lhote employs flat geometric planes and vibrant colour to highlight the
modernity of the subject. In a letter to Lhote about this purchase, Amaral mentions
that she had been promoting Lhote’s work in the Brazilian press, but expresses her
frustration with the pace at which the “modern movement” is taking hold in Brazil
(Amaral 1924: np). For her, Lhote’s work epitomized modernity and should serve
7
She also purchased another unspecified painting of Lhote’s choosing in 1924.
57
Michele Greet
Fig. 2: Lhote, André (1885-1962), Soccer, n.d., Photograph, Revista do Arquivo Municipal
de São Paulo, no. 106: 73. © Archives André Lhote/photogapher unknown © ADAGP
as an archetype for artists there. Amaral wrote the letter in a familiar tone and alluded to her camaraderie with Madame Lhote, which suggests that she shared a
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Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
genuine friendship with the family beyond that of student and teacher. Amaral’s
acquisition of Lhote’s paintings and promotion of his work in Brazil indicates that
she viewed him as a leading figure in modernism.
Indeed, Amaral consistently supported Lhote even when the continued controversy regarding the relevance of cubism and the debates over whether artists
should adhere to a classical French tradition or adopt a new universalizing abstract
aesthetic had begun to take their toll on Lhote’s reputation in the 1930s.8 Amaral
defended the artist’s stance and importance as a teacher in a 1936 article on Lhote
for the Diário de São Paulo: “He has created a school of conciliation very much
his own. There has been much discussion about his art. Supporters of cubist expression, the sincere and the snobbish, simply see in his painting modernized archaism and as they can no longer accept artistic realism, they immediately include
him among the mediocre painters. However, Lhote is a conscientious artist who
contributed to modernity with his interesting, solid, vigorous and pleasing compositions – if lacking in genius – and in his lessons on the art of drawing, which his
pupils have spread throughout the world” (Fundación Juan March 2009: 205). Her
characterization of Lhote as “lacking in genius” suggests that Amaral followed
artistic debates in Europe closely and adjusted her assessment of the artist accordingly. But she also notes, however, the global impact of his methods.
Artists from the Argentinean Grupo de Paris also felt the profound influence
of Lhote’s teachings. Basaldúa and Butler took classes with Lhote at the Académie
de Montparnasse in 1923, Antonio Berni (Fig. 3) and Lino Spilimbergo enrolled
at Lhote’s new academy in 1926, and Aquiles Badí and Pedro Dominguez Neira
followed their lead in 1927 and 1929. Basaldúa seemed to have been ambivalent
about Lhote’s methods, however, writing to his colleagues in 1923: “I went to
André Lhote’s studio (ex cubist, theoretician, terrible painter and excellent though
dangerous teacher) . . . Lhote, invoking the great deformers: Tintoretto, Ingres,
8
Even in 1928 Raynal, affiliate of Léonce Rosenberg, continued his attack on Lhote, writing
that his painting lacked style and personality: “André Lhote, despite his real intelligence, is the
leading culprit of this too hasty movement, which he called le cubisme sensible. Once more
the subject reappears, manipulated by scientific geometric deformations, clever and nimble, but
coldly impersonal, because of the absence of all authentic style. Hayden, Herbin, Survage, Ortiz,
Zárraga, Pruna and Gimmi embraced this tendency, and their ability was such that they often
made it very attractive” (Raynal 1928: 23).
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Michele Greet
Fig. 3: Berni, Antonio (1905-1981), Landscape at Marcesine, 1927, Oil on canvas,
103.2 x 90 cm. Private collection. © Dr. Luis Emilio de Rosa / photograph Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.
Greco, Rodin, etc. made me reduce all my forms to geometric elements. There I
spent two months making cubes and now I have to return from the expedition,
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Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
desperately fighting to reunite everything without achieving anything but trash
and more trash. In the end, surely with hard work and perseverance I will stop
floundering someday” (Whitelow 1980: 46). But in 1926, Basaldúa’s paintings
still showed strong evidence of Lhote’s approach.9 In Nude (1926) (Fig. 4), for
example, the characteristic faceting and diagonal structure of Lhote’s compositions appear in the background, but the figure is set apart, more monumental and
naturalistic than Amaral’s rendition of the nude from Lhote’s studio. This shift
evidences a change in Lhote’s own approach to painting as he moved toward
greater monumentality as can be seen in Seated Nude in Landscape of 1928 (Fig.
5) (Golan 1995: 18-21). In a letter to his siblings written in 1923 Horacio Butler
also recognized Lhote as one of the leading teachers in Montparnasse, but was
wary about becoming too entrenched in the artist’s methods: “I’m still at the Académie Montparnasse, that, without a doubt, is the most interesting at the moment.
During the three weeks that I have been there, I have benefited tremendously.
The professor, André Lhote, is a much-discussed painter. I think that he is a better teacher than artist. His corrections are very interesting but they are something
to undergo for at most two months. The technique that is taught there is based
in cubism and a group of principles that should be taken as a means not an end”
(Butler 1982: 71).
A sketch by Spilimbergo made in Lhote’s studio (Fig. 6) provides one of the
best insights into Lhote’s approach to teaching. On the side of the paper Spilimbergo summarizes Lhote’s lesson: “The richness of the colour and [undecipherable word] lines is determined through the study of objects that break apart the
discrete parts of the canvas.” This notation refers to Lhote’s directive to find the
underlying structure of a composition through observation and extrapolation of
the essential forms of the model. In the sketch, Spilimbergo has organized the
composition with a diagonal grid, aligning trees, torsos, and the bend of knees
and elbows with the surface structure of the grid, a lesson Lhote almost certainly
derived from Cézanne’s Bathers (1889–1905). This approach to composition allowed the artist to expand or exaggerate the shapes that stemmed from observation of a model according to a specific structure. While based on nature, the forms
9
While not noted in Butler (1982), his name appears on the rosters at the Académie Lhote, so he
must have returned to take classes at the new academy.
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Michele Greet
Fig. 4: Basaldúa, Héctor (1895-1978), Nude, 1926, Oil on canvas, 117 x 89 cm. Private
collection. © Emilio Basaldúa / photograph Arroyo Remates.
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Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
Fig. 5: Lhote, André (1885-1962), Seated Nude in Landscape, 1928, Oil on canvas, 96 x 62
cm. Private collection. © Archives André Lhote/photograph Sotheby’s New York © ADAGP
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Michele Greet
Fig. 6: Spilimbergo, Lino (1896-1964), Study Composition, 1928, Pencil on paper,
23.5 x 30.5 cm. Private Collection. Orphan work / photograph Fondo Nacional de las
Artes, Buenos Aires.
no longer conform to naturalistic resemblance, but rather shift to accommodate
the structure of the canvas, taking shape according to their relationship with the
overlaying grid. A tree balances the vertical figure on the right, a distant mountain
echoes the meeting point of the diagonal grid, branches arch to conform to the
curve of shoulders and heads.
Paintings from the same period such as Nude (1927) indicate a similar experimentation with form. Here the model has been simplified, while retaining a solid
form, to reveal clean planes and an underlying geometry. Angles have become
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Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
harsher, curves rounder, and the face is devoid of individuality. Shapes in the
background echo those in the figure, creating a pattern over the entire surface.
This common foundation in Lhote’s methods unified the early work of Argentine
artists of the Grupo de Paris and gave it a modernist edge in the conservative
context of Argentina. Yet artist Emilio Pettoruti argued that Lhote’s teachings prevented these artists from breaking into the ranks of the avant-garde: “At that time
the Académie Lhote was famous, frequented by numerous aspiring artists from all
over the world; however, this great theoretician of vanguard art, who did not know
how to apply his brilliant propositions that made him famous to his painting, also
did not know how to create disciples that would advance the system. There were
legions of Lhote’s students, but none who distinguished themselves” (Pettoruti
2004: 160). His evaluation of Lhote’s students most likely reflects his frustration
that more artists, such as those of the Grupo de Paris, did not push artistic boundaries further upon their return to Argentina.
Despite Pettoruti’s proclamation, Lhote’s teachings did not hinder the majority of his students; rather they established a firm foundation on which to build.
Most of the works discussed above represent an early or experimental phase in
an artists’ career from which they later diverged. Many of the Latin American
artists who experimented with cubist techniques in the 1920s did so via Lhote’s
teachings not through a study of Picasso, who did not teach or exhibit at the salons. They did so not to become belated cubists, forever behind in a Eurocentric
modernist trajectory, but rather because they, like Lhote, saw cubist technique as
a valuable tool for developing new approaches to composition. Indeed, Lhote’s
importance for Latin American artists continued well beyond the 1920s. When
Cuban artist Marcelo Pogolotti met him in the context of the Association des
Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires (A.E.A.R.), he proclaimed that Lhote possessed an “exceptionally well-nourished intelligence.” He goes on, “His conversation, accompanied by refined critical sense, was lively and agile, being the fruit
of slow, painstaking consideration” (Pogolotti 1968: 226).
Despite the reticence expressed by several Latin American students towards
Lhote’s approach, he provided one of the few opportunities for artists to study
with an instructor who embraced a specific theoretical vision of modernism. Unlike the other academies in Montparnasse that hired a range of different teachers,
united only in their anti-academicism, Lhote’s school imparted a reasoned and
65
Michele Greet
structured means to achieve modernism. Lhote established a method to build on
the past without entirely rejecting tradition. While many Latin American artists
eventually broke free from Lhote’s method, it served as an archetype of theory
based teaching. Thus, not only did the Académie Lhote provide a contact zone for
Latin American artists from different countries, it compelled artists to contemplate the very notion of method and its implications in relation to past, present,
and future artistic production.
References
Amaral, Aracy A. Tarsila. Sua obra e seu tempo. 3rd ed. São Paulo 2003.
Amaral, Tarsila do. Letter to André Lhote, 25.1.1924. André Lhote archive.
Amaral, Tarsila do. “Memories of Paris” (1952). Translated in Fundación Juan March.
Tarsila do Amaral. Madrid 2009: 48-49.
Amaral, Tarsila do. “The School of Lhote” Diário de São Paulo, 8.3.1936. Translated in
Fundación Juan March. Tarsila do Amaral. Madrid 2009: 205-206.
Butler, Horacio. Horacio Butler: Conversaciones con María Esther Vázquez. Buenos Aires 1982.
Carpentier, Alejo. Crónicas. Arte y sociedad. La Habana 1975.
Donoso, Pedro León. Ideas acerca de la pintura moderna; conferencia dictada en el curso
de capacitación del personal del Museo Único y del [Archivo] Nacional de Historia.
Quito 1938.
Exposición de pintura moderna Europea. Exhibition catalogue, Montevideo 1935.
Exposition de peinture moderne. Exhibition catalogue, Bogotá 1922.
Fundación Juan March. Tarsila do Amaral. Madrid 2009.
Golan, Romy. Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France Between the Wars.
New Haven 1995.
Guenne, Jacques. “Portraits d’artistes André Lhote.” L’Art vivant 2, 3/1926: 177–82.
Lhote, André. “A First Visit to the Louvre.” Athenaeum, 22.8.1919: 787–88.
Lhote, André. “De l’utilisation plastique du coup de foudre.” Nouvelle revue francaise;
revue mensuelle de littérature et de critique, 3/1924: 289–302.
Lhote, André. “Galerie Druet, 1923.” La Nouvelle Revue Française XIe année, 123,
12/1923.
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Latin American Artists at the Académie Lhote
Lhote, André. “La Vie des lettres: Peinture d’un cubisme ‘sensible’.” La Vie des Lettres et
des Arts 15, 3/1924: 1–6.
Lhote, André. “L’Enseignement de Cezanne.” Nouvelle revue francaise; revue mensuelle
de littérature et de critique, 11/1920: 649–72.
Lhote, André. “The Paris Salon.” The Athenaeum, 16.7.1920: 87–88; 117–18.
Lhote, André. “Premier discours à mes élèves” unpublished document. André Lhote archive.
Lhote, André, Leonard Hutton Galleries, and Daniel Robbins. André Lhote, 1885–1962,
Cubism. Exhibition catalogue, 16.10–18.12.1976, New York 1976.
Lhote, André, Drôme Musée de Valence, and Moulin, Hélène. André Lhote, 1885–1962.
Exhibition catalogue, 15.6–28.9.2003, Paris 2003.
López Anaya, Jorge. Historia del arte argentino. Buenos Aires 1997.
Maugis, M.-T. “Un quart d’heure avec Antonio Berni.” Les Lettres françaises, 30.8.1962.
Pettoruti, Emilio. Un Pintor ante el espejo. Buenos Aires 2004.
Picón-Salas, Mariano, and Palenzuela, Juan Carlos. Las Formas y las visiones: Ensayos
sobre arte. Caracas 2007.
Pogolotti, Marcelo. Del Barro y las voces. Havana 1968.
Raynal, Maurice. Modern French Painters. New York 1928.
Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel and Julio Castellanos. Letter to Andre Lhote, 17.12.1925. André Lhote Archive.
Snelgrove, Gordon William. An Investigation of the Present Developments from Cubism
as Exemplified by the Work and Theories of Andre Lhote, MA Thesis, University of
Chicago, 1933.
Sociedade Pro’ Arte Moderna. SPAM: Primeira exposição de arte moderna, pintura, escultura, arquitetura. Exhibition catalogue, 4–5.1933, São Paulo 1933.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Chaos & Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany 1918-1936. Exhibition catalogue, 1.10.2010–9.1.2011. New York 2010.
Warnod, André. Les Berceaux de la jeune peinture: Montmartre, Montparnasse. Paris
1925.
Whitelow, Guillermo. Héctor Basaldúa. Monografías de artistas argentinos. Buenos Aires
1980.
Whitelow, Guillermo. Spilimbergo. Buenos Aires 1999.
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Michele Greet
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Amaral, Tarsila do (1886-1973), Two Models, 1923, Oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm.
Private collection. © Luciana Rangel / photograph by Romulo Fialdini e Milene
Rinaldi.
Fig. 2: Lhote, André (1885-1962), Soccer, n.d., photograph, Revista do Arquivo Municipal
de São Paulo, no. 106: 73. © Archives André Lhote/photogapher unknown © ADAGP
Fig. 3: Berni, Antonio (1905-1981), Landscape at Marcesine, 1927, Oil on canvas, 103.2
x 90 cm. Private collection. © Dr. Luis Emilio de Rosa / photograph Museo Nacional
de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.
Fig. 4: Basaldúa, Héctor (1895-1978), Nude, 1926, Oil on canvas, 117x89 cm. Private collection. © Emilio Basaldúa / photograph Arroyo Remates.
Fig. 5: Lhote, André (1885-1962), Seated Nude in Landscape, 1928, Oil on canvas, 96 x
62 cm. Private collection. © Archives André Lhote/photograph Sotheby’s New York
© ADAGP
Fig. 6: Spilimbergo, Lino (1896-1964), Study Composition, 1928, Pencil on paper, 23.5 x
30.5 cm. Private Collection. Orphan work / photograph Fondo Nacional de las Artes,
Buenos Aires.
68
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”1
Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
ABSTRACT
Little is known about Mexican painter Manuel Rodríguez Lozano’s stay at André Lhote’s academy, apart from a precious letter that is kept today at Lhote’s
archive in Le Raincy, testifying that he and his friend Julio Castellanos undoubtedly met him. That moment marked a watershed in Lozano’s career and
visibly improved his technical skills, which led a few years later to the maturation of his distinguishably clean and essential style, underscored at that time by
the term of “purism,” that had been obliterated by history.
Given that Lozano’s formative development has not been discussed in relation to cubism, this essay sets out to discuss André Lhote’s pedagogy as influential and directional for the Mexican artist in developing a unique style.
Introduction
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano (1891-1971) can be seen as a symbolic figure of the
Mexican modernist counterculture. He denied any of the principles that sustained
the muralist movement based on moral, political or educative purposes. He instead, vindicated the faith of “Art for art’s sake,” focusing on the fundamental
sources of art itself.
Lozano always worked in the margin: his cosmopolitanism, his homosexuality
and his non-communist affiliation differed from the nationalist, politicised and virile
imprint of the post revolution era. Such a choice was seen in that historical, nationalistic period not as unconventional but quite the opposite, as purely reactionary.
1
All the texts quoted were originally in Spanish and translated into English by the author.
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Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
But Lozano wasn’t really looking to break with tradition. His posture collided
for example with the likewise anti muralist movement known as Estridentismo
(1921-1927), which looked instead for a radical aesthetic renovation influenced
by avant-gardes such as futurism, dadaism and cubism.
When Lozano arrived at Lhote’s atelier, he had already built up his muscles in
that direction. Firstly, during his exile at San Sebastian in Spain (1914 to 1920)
where he undoubtedly had contact with the local art world and discovered his
artistic vein.2 During that period, Basque art was enjoying a moment of splendour, founded in a realistic art, based on the discovery of own regional roots. The
Basque art model was not stated in the Spanish tradition, but in the European and
particularly French avant-garde, it was seen as an attitude of independence towards Madrid, aspiring to universality.3 This aspect must have been highly valued
by Lozano and constituted the axis of his own concept of art.
When the Revolution was over, he returned to Mexico at the end of 1920. Although already 30 years old, he was able to integrate easily into the new cultural
ambience.
After a decade of civil war, Mexican society was shattered. The government
was the only art patron. The Minister of Culture José Vasconcelos, a key figure in
Mexican cultural history, understood the power of art as an ideal means to unite
society, as well as a powerful political tool that the new government could use to
spread the principles of the Revolution.
A realistic, highly emotive and impressive language was needed to spread the
message and awaken Mexican pride, by exalting ethnic roots and promoting Mesoamerican culture, as well as folk art which had been denigrated by the elite until
then.
Lozano, divorced Carmen Mondragón soon after his arrival in Mexico, and
started a relationship with his young pupil Abraham Angel, with whom he started
2
3
70
Until then, he had worked in Mexico as a bureaucrat for the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Lozano was
forced to leave Mexico, having to escape from his father-in-law’s misdeeds: Manuel Mondragón
had betrayed the Mexican President Francisco I. Madero, plotting his assassination with other
high-level politicians in 1913. In their exile, his wife, Carmen Mondragón, better known as
Nauhi Olin, became a cartoonist and his brother-in-law, a professional photographer, had set off
a photographic laboratory in 1918 that was called Photito where exhibitions of local artists were
organized.
Except for Catalan art which moved between the vanguard and the Mediterranean tradition.
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
to paint in a naive style, as part of an anti-academic attitude. Like many other artists, they travelled and discovered rural Mexico and its small villages. They also
became close friends of Adolfo Best Maugard, an artist and pedagogue, inventor
of the so-called “Best Method,”4 a drawing learning method that didn’t claim to
succumb to foreign influence but was rather a matter of “Mexicanizing” the tastes
right from childhood (Fell 1989: 444).
Rodríguez Lozano in Argentina
1925 was a pivotal year in Lozano’s career. He undertook a trip to Argentina in
April, along with his disciple Julio Castellanos, and in August they would sail
from Buenos Aires to Paris and remain there until December.
Both left Mexico months after the Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles
(1924-1928) took power. Calles not only stopped supporting the artists but also
censored and repressed them because he did not tolerate criticism. Diego Rivera
was the only exception and continued to receive commissions from the government. Some artists like José Clemente Orozco had to move to the United States
to survive because in Mexico private collecting was still non-existent. This different political climate may have pushed Rodríguez Lozano and Castellanos to
travel to Argentina although ironically, it probably happened thanks to state support. Lozano went to Argentina to promote the pedagogical achievements of the
Best Method and the adjustments he provided to it. It was an event that anticipated the very successful Mexican children art exhibitions5, presented in 1926
4
5
It consisted of a graphic alphabet of 7 symbols that, according to Best, encompassed all the arcane
arts of the world: spiral, circle, half circle, straight line, zigzag, the motif of the „S“ and the wavy
line. Their combination allowed any form in nature to be created. The Best Method was applied in
1921 in the primary public schools of Mexico City by the Minister of Education José Vasconcelos,
and published with a print run of 15,000 copies as a manual, in 1923 by the Ministry of Public
Education (SEP). By then, ironically, it had lost its validity until it was definitely abolished in
1925. In: Best Maugard, Adolfo, Método de dibujo: tradición, resurgimiento y evolución del arte
mexicano, Ciudad de México, Departamento Editorial de la Secretaría de Educación, 1923.
It derived from the project of the Escuelas al Aire Libre that brought together a collection of 200
drawings and paintings done by poor Indian children who were left to create without any rules. It
is known that in the Paris exhibition Picasso was not only enthusiastic about the exhibition, but
also helped in the montage.
71
Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
by the artist and pedagogic Alfredo Ramos Martínez in Berlin, Paris and Madrid
(González Matute 1987: 113-123). The attempt was to promote the image of a
democratic and progressive country abroad.
Unlike his colleagues (Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and
Rufino Tamayo to name a few), Lozano could not live off his art abroad. He was
still an immature artist. The exhibitions showing the children’s work were perhaps
an excellent excuse to leave Mexico and continue his training.
It was a rather brief but essential period, because the artist came into contact
with the most select of Argentine culture, close to the avant-garde circles of the
cultural association Amigos del Arte, as well as intellectuals involved with the
magazines Proa and Martín Fierro which were frequented by Jorge Luis Borges
and Ricardo Güiraldes, among others. (Fig. 1)
It is quite possible that Rodríguez Lozano knew about Lhote during his stay in
Argentina. The French artist was very well known and appreciated (Sartor 2003:
148) amid the circle Lozano frequented during those months, such as Delia del
Carril (Alberti 2009: 551).6
Rodríguez Lozano and Julio Castellanos travelled to Paris with the Uruguayan
painter Pedro Figari who was in Argentina at that time. Figari wrote an excellent
article about Lozano’s pedagogical work in the pages of Martín Fierro (Figari
1925: 121).7
Rodríguez Lozano meets Lhote
Lozano settled in Paris at a time of cultural ferment, and in a hospitable context
for Latin Americans who were welcomed; they were not economic migrants but
cultured and wealthy travellers. From 1918 to 1939 more than 300 Latin Ameri6
7
72
However, it is possible, that Rodríguez Lozano saw Lhote’s work for the first time at the
International Exhibition in Bilbao in 1919, not only because of the event’s importance but also
because we know he frequented museums. The French artist was present with one painting titled
Beneath the forest.
In 1915 Figari, being director of the School of Arts and Crafts, implemented an avant-garde
educational system in Montevideo, which was hampered by the local bureaucracy. Figari began
painting when he was very old and, like Lozano, was interested in capturing the traditional motifs
of his land.
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
Fig. 1: Borges, Norah, Niño
de la flor, a Manuel Rodríguez
Lozano, Lavinia Usigli Casas
collection.
can artists lived in Paris, concentrated mostly in Montparnasse (Greet 2015: 136138). (Fig. 2)
Lozano arrived in Paris in September 1925 carrying three different letters of recommendation. The first one was from the writer Ricardo Güiraldes addressed to
writers Valery Larbaud and the Uruguayan poet Jules Supervielle, who was a friend
of Figari. The second from Pedro Henríquez Ureña to Alfonso Reyes, and the last
from the editor Victoria Ocampo, directed to Jeanne (which the artist kept in his
small archive all his life).8 It is likely that it was addressed to Jeanne Guérandel.9
8
9
Letter to Victoria Ocampo to Jeanne, August 16th1925.
Jeanne Guérandel was the French translator of Alfonso Reyes book Visión de Anáhuac (1919),
73
Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Fig. 2: Rodríguez Lozano,
Manuel, Selfportrait, n.d.,
ink on paper, 13 x 19 cm, Archive of the Centro Nacional
de Investigación, Documentación e Información de Artes
Plásticas (Cenidiap).
Of such recommendations, Alfonso Reyes’s was probably the most valuable. It
was perhaps through him that Lozano might have met Lhote. The Reyes organised
dominical teas at home, attended by their international friends (Reyes 1969: 113).
Reyes was not only the ambassador of Mexico in France but also an internationally renowned intellectual, with a thick portfolio of contacts. Reyes and Lozano
would maintain a friendship throughout their lives. Moreover, both shared the
published in 1927 in La Nouvelle Revue Française. Like Lhote (Bouiller: 1999), Reyes published
in the Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF).
74
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
thorny and sad episode of Madero’s murder, which had been the cause of their
exile.10
The question is: Why did Lozano come to Lhote? There is no doubt that he did so
to improve his technique. Pedro Enriquez Ureña in a letter to Alfonso Reyes says
that despite the artist’s talent the immaturity of Lozano’s work as well as the still
notorious technical errors.11 (Fig. 3)
Fig. 3: Rodríguez Lozano,
Manuel, Alfonso Reyes portrait, 1925, oil on triplay, 55
x 46 cm. Capilla Alfonsina–
INBA collection.
10 Alfonso Reyes’s father, General Bernardo Reyes along with Manuel Mondragón, (Lozano’s
father-in-law), participated in the assassination of President Madero, at which time he would
lose his life, leaving a huge emptiness in his son Alfonso, who had to live in exile, first in Paris
and then in Madrid.
11 Henríquez Ureña, Pedro, letter to Alfonso Reyes, July 20th 1925, La Plata, in: De Lara, Juan
Jacobo, Henríquez Ureña, Pedro, Epistolario íntimo, (1906-1946), Santo Domingo 1983, III,
293-294.
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Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Considering also that he was an art teacher himself, Lozano probably wanted to
attend Lhote’s academy not only to improve his art but also to learn his pedagogic method. The construction of Lozano’s unique and original art should be
understood in the frame of his meeting with Lhote, together with his previous
stays in Spain and Argentina. Lozano wanted to capture the abstract values of
Mexican culture, rather than the external folkloristic ones, like the muralists. He
didn’t mean to imitate European artistic movements, but to learn from them, while
adapting its principles to the local reality and needs.
The certainty of the meeting between the two Mexican artists and Lhote is
given to us in a farewell letter written by the Mexicans and preserved at the Lhote
foundation: “Mr André Lhote. Dear master, next Monday we’ll return to Mexico. We would be delighted to express our admiration and friendship once again.
Please accept, dear master, the feelings of our highest admiration.”12 (Fig. 4)
This letter mends an error in the Mexican historiography. It was affirmed
wrongly that Lozano lived in Paris during his exile instead of San Sebastian.
However, this brief note neither provides complete certainty of the extent to
which Lozano was related to Lhote, nor whether he was indeed his student. It also
does not provide information for how long he attended Lhote’s academy, though
the reiteration of the word “master” in the letter, could be interpreted as a student
respectfully addressing his teacher.
The only testimony written by Lozano about Lhote was much time after and
used only as self-praise in memory of the children’s exhibition in which, according to a Lozano article written in a Mexican newspaper, Lhote had said to him:
“You have revealed yourself to be a wonderful teacher, the likes of which have
never been seen in Paris” (Lozano: 1943).13
12 Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Letter to André Lhote, December 17th 1925, París, France. Archives
André Lhote, París. Translation by Xabier Arcelus. Reviewing the calendar, we deduce that
both artists left Paris on Monday, December 21st. Lozano highlights that he was going back
to Mexico. We know by another letter kept at the archive of the Capilla Alfonsina, that before
returning to Mexico they both made a trip around Spain and France.
13 Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, La Feria de la pintura, Hoy, Ciudad de México September 1943, in:
Pensamiento y pintura, 82-83.
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Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
Fig. 4: Handwritten letter by Manuel
Rodríguez Lozano and Julio Castellanos, dated Paris Dec 17 1925,
signed by both artists,© Archives
André Lhote © ADAGP
The Cubism of Rodríguez Lozano
There is a group of undated drawings done by Lozano in a cubist style (Fig. 5) that
he might have done during his stay in Paris.
While Lozano’s early works showed no stylistic evidence of cubism, surprisingly in Argentina just before arriving in Paris, texts describe him for the first time
as a cubist. Art critic Alberto Prebisch, who would go on to become an outstanding Argentinian rationalist architect, was the first to have called him so: “Rodríguez Lozano and Castellanos have been trained in the harsh disciplines of cubism.
However, his cubism is not strictly rational but has a stable and lasting builder
principle that aspires to order and plastic synthesis, contrary to impressionism. A
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Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Fig. 5: Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Composition, ca. 1925, Archive of the Centro Nacional
de Investigación, Documentación e Información de Artes Plásticas (Cenidiap).
work that is fresh, primitive and ingenuously conventional. An aesthetic choice
that is neither comparable to picturesqueness nor instinct, but to an entirely conscious and intellectual position conceived in broad geometric rhythms [...] that
accentuate the structural rhythm, from which maximum plastic efficiency is obtained” (Prebisch 1925: 3).
Likewise Lozano was identified as a cubist artist after his return to Mexico at the
beginning of 1926 (Prebisch, Salmón 1927:1-5). Lozano considered fugacity and
superficiality incompatible with the forms of a country like Mexico whose visual
background and tradition was entirely based on geometric forms. He said: “Think
about Aztec sculpture, or popular art, made with an exact contour of clear shapes
and plain tones” (Rodríguez Lozano 1960: 143).
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Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
Cubism was, therefore, the means to eliminate the anecdote and to focus on
the purely plastic aspects of art. The models were Cézanne and especially Picasso
(Artundo 2011: 103).
Cubism meant having the ability “to anchor things, to restore their viscera,
their skeleton [...] without stopping in the transitory, penetrating the intimacy of
the construction and structure of the painting, whose meaning surpasses what they
represent” (Girondo 1999: 321).
Despite Lozano having close contact with cubism and the critics calling him
a cubist, he didn’t accept such a label. He thought Latin American avant-garde
artists had to reject the isms, including cubism. He saw it as an imitative appropriation and not a style born on the American Continent, therefore alien to local
reality. His intention was “to reach new values that aspire to acquire a technique
as effective as the European, but with a sense, with a taste, and with an authentic
Mexican spirit” (Rodríguez Lozano 1960: 32).
The “Purist” Art of Rodríguez Lozano
If we analyse five of the works that Lozano had produced in 1926 it is evident that
apart from El Corrido, he overcame narration by a formulaic response, which the
critics noticed. In 1929 the art critic Anita Brenner wrote that the work of Lozano
had “become simpler, more solid, and less sophisticated in appearance” (Brenner
1983: 274-275).
Writer Jaime Torres Bodet made a distinction of the artist’s youthful works
and noted how he overcame the narrative through the structure of the drawing to
construct the image (Bodet 1932).
At the beginning of the 1930s, Lozano delivered a handful of exquisite works,
probably the best in his entire career, where his experience in Paris seemed to
have reached full maturity, such as: Perfiles (1929), and the portraits of: Luisa
Cabrera de Block (1930) (Fig. 6), Tebo (1931), Consuelo (1933), Diana Souberville (ca. 1933).
This group of oils signed the end of an unprecedented creative explosion not
only in Mexico but also in Lozano’s career. The 1920s in the aftermath of the
Revolution, are considered to have settled the cultural basis and tendencies for the
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Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Fig. 6: Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Retrato de Luisa Cabrera de Block, 1930, oil on canvas, 95 x 75 cm. Ana Malú Block Cabrera collection.
80
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
rest of the century. Two opposing forces represented it, nationalism and vanguard,
led correspondingly by Muralism and by the so-called “Los Contemporáneos.”
The latter was represented by a group of poets and artists that considered the
interaction with international vanguard the only way to create modern Mexican
art. They formed together with their patron Antonieta Rivas Mercado, and Rodríguez Lozano and other artists, one of the most influential cultural enterprises
that inaugurated the vanguard in Mexico between 1927–1928 such as the Ulises
magazine, Ulises Theatre (considered the first modern theatre in Mexico) and the
Mexican Symphonic Orchestra, among others.
The 1930s changed the destiny of the group forever, when Antonieta Rivas
Mercado committed suicide in 1931 in Paris. Having lost the political and philanthropic support, the group was attacked as immoral and in 1934 the members were
removed from their public jobs by a committee of public health. Being accused of
homosexuality and reactionary, they withdrew themselves from the public scene.
Lozano’s art seemingly suffered from that fracture too, as his art lost its freshness and became gradually manieristic and grim.
With the mid-thirties, Lozano was influenced by Picasso’s neoclassical style,
using oversized androgen figures and by the end of the 1930s the content of his
painting shifted towards surrealist characters put into rarefied sea landscapes.
From the 1940’s on he filled his canvases with disquiet phantom-like figures of
theatrical gestures, moving in black landscapes, full of mystery and uneasiness.
Lozano stopped painting by 1960 and died a decade later in 1971.
References
Alberti, Rafael, Obras completas: la arboleda perdida (Prosa) Memorias, Ciudad de
México 2009, II, 551.
Artundo, Patricia, “Los círculos culturales de la Argentina,” en: Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Pensamiento y Pintura, exhibition catalogue, Ciudad de México, 20.07–9.10.2011,
87; 103.
Brenner, Anita, Ídolos tras los altares, Ciudad de México 1983, 274-275.
81
Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Digital archive and publications project at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. http://
icaadocs.mfah.org/icaadocs/ELARCHIVO/RegistroCompleto/tabid/99/doc/823372/
language/es-MX/Default.aspx, accessed 11.06.2018.
De la Encina, Juan, “Aspectos generales del arte vasco,” in: I Congreso de Estudios Vascos
en Oñate de 1918, Donostia 1919: 831.
Figari, Pedro, Arte infantil mejicano, Martín Fierro, Buenos Aires, segunda época,
2/18/26.06.1925,121.
García García, Isabel, “La influencia de los artistas extranjeros en la vanguardia española
(1910-1950),” in: Cabañas Bravo, Miguel (Coord.), El arte español del siglo XX: su
perspectiva al final del milenio, Madrid, Instituto de Historia. Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, 2001: 232.
Fell, Claude, José Vasconcelos: los años del águila, 1920-1925: educación, cultura e
Iberoamericanismo en el México postrevolucionario, Ciudad de México 1989: 444.
Girondo, Oliverio, El periódico Martín Fierro, in: Antelo, Raúl (Coord.), Oliverio Girondo
obra completa, Madrid 1999: 321.
González Matute, Laura, Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre y Centros Populares de Pintura, Ciudad de México, INBA, Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e
Información de Artes Plásticas, Dirección de Investigación y Documentación de las
Artes 1987: 113.
Greet, Michele, “Mapping cultural Exchange: Latin American Artists in Paris between
the wars,” in: Circulations in the Global History of Art; Studies in Art Historiography
series. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Catherine Dossin, and Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel
(eds.), New York 2015: 136-138.
Greet, Michele, Transatlantic Encounters. Latin American Artists in the interwar Paris,
Web page. http://chnm.gmu.edu/transatlanticencounters/items/browse/1?collection
=1&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle, accessed 24.09.2018.
Kosme, María, González de Durana, Javier, La Exposición Internacional de Pintura y
Escultura de Bilbao en 1919, Bilbao 1987: 181.
Prebisch, Alberto: “Rodríguez Lozano y Julio Castellanos,” Martín Fierro, Buenos Aires,
II/18/June 26th 1925: 3.
Prebisch, Alberto, Salmón, André: “El pintor Manuel Rodríguez Lozano,” Forma Revista
de Artes Plásticas, Ciudad de México, I/4/1927: 1-5.
Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Pensamiento y pintura, Ciudad de México 1960: 293-294.
82
Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the Mexican “Purist”
Sartor, Mario, Arte latinoamericana contemporanea: dal 1825 ai giorni nostri, Milano,
Jaca Book 2003: 148.
Torres Bodet, Jaime. Rodríguez Lozano, Galería de pintores modernos mexicanos Boletín
Mensual Carta Blanca, Ciudad de México 1934.
Zárraga, Ángel, “Artes Plásticas: La pintura en México; Carta de Ángel Zárraga a Manuel
Rodríguez Lozano,” Horizonte: Revista mensual de actividad contemporánea, Ciudad
de México, 4/07/1926: 33-34.
Archival Material
Ocampo Victoria, handwritten letter to Jeanne, August 1925. Archive Carlos Slim (Fondo
Guillermo Tovar de Teresa).
Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, handwritten letter to André Lhote, Ciudad de México, September 28th 1926, n. 2210. Archive Alfonso Reyes.
Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Castellanos Julio, handwritten letter to André Lhote, December 17th 1925, París. Archives André Lhote.
Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, handwritten letter to Alfonso Reyes, Ciudad de México, September 28th 1926, n. 2210. Archive Alfonso Reyes.
Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, handwritten letter to Alfonso Reyes, Ciudad de México,
October 5th 1926. Archive Alfonso Reyes.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Borges, Norah, Niño de la flor, a Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Lavinia Usigli Casas
collection.
Fig. 2: Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Selfportrait, n.d., ink on paper, 13 x 19 cm, Archive of
the Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información de Artes Plásticas (Cenidiap).
Fig. 3: Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Alfonso Reyes portrait, 1925, oil on triplay, 55 x 46 cm.
Capilla Alfonsina–INBA collection.
Fig. 4: Handwritten letter by Manuel Rodríguez Lozano and Julio Castellanos, dated Paris
Dec 17 1925, signed by both artists, © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP
83
Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Fig. 5: Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Composition, ca. 1925, Archive of the Centro Nacional
de Investigación, Documentación e Información de Artes Plásticas (Cenidiap).
Fig. 6: Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel, Retrato de Luisa Cabrera de Block, 1930, oil on canvas, 95 x 75 cm. Ana Malú Block Cabrera collection.
84
In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of
Caroline Rogers Hill
David Burzillo
ABSTRACT
Caroline Rogers Hill (1878-1965) was a student at the Academie André Lhote
in the 1920s. Her name is likely remembered today only by surviving family
members, but the life she lead and the choices she made--focusing on career,
public service, and art at different points in her life--demonstrate an independence and drive typical of that exhibited by other “New Women” of her day.
At the age of forty, Caroline Hill turned her focus to art. Embracing the milieu
of 1920s and 1930s Paris, she painted and sculpted, studied with well-known
teachers to hone her practice, exhibited at numerous salon, and collected art
as well. Her ability to change the trajectory of her life on multiple occasions
based on her shifting interests and current events testify to her power to make
meaning in a world where the power to choose was quite circumscribed for
most women.
Among her many contributions to the field of women’s studies, the scholar Carroll
Smith-Rosenberg focused attention on the lives of a group of unique, late-19th and
early 20th century American women who were “single, highly educated, and economically autonomous” (Smith-Rosenberg 1985: 245). What made these “New
Women” so remarkable, according to Smith-Rosenberg, was that “[H]er quintessentially American identity, her economic resources, and her social standing permitted her to defy proprieties, pioneer new roles, and still insist upon a rightful
place within the genteel world” (245). Caroline Rogers Hill (1878-1965), a student for two years at the Academie André Lhote, was just such a “New Woman.”
She was married briefly but remained single for the better part of her life. She embraced progressive social ideas and service as evidenced by her work with Denison House and the Women’s Municipal League of Boston. And she was not averse
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David Burzillo
to tackling challenging service projects, spending almost four years in France during World War I where she engaged in relief work with child refugees. She also
lived and worked in the exciting artistic milieu of post-World-War-I Paris for close
to twenty years. This short resume of Hill’s life and work should more than attest
to her worthiness as a subject for historical inquiry. But this short resume does not
account for the details of her life and work in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, when
she studied sculpture with Antoine Bourdelle and painting with André Lhote, and
exhibited both sculptures and paintings at various salons in and around Paris. This
period of her life is also rich enough to justify her worthiness as a subject for historical study. Hill came to a passion for art later in her life, making her art career
a relatively short one, though art still remained a passion even after it had become
challenging for her to practice her craft. In her final years she shifted her focus
from Europe to the southwestern United States, exploring Native American art,
and it was on a trip to Mexico, to explore Toltec ruins, that she died in 1965.
Caroline Rogers was born in 1878, in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, just outside
of Boston. She was raised primarily in Barre, Massachusetts, a rural community
about 60 miles west of Boston, where her father ran the local newspaper. The
family was comfortably middle class, but they certainly would not be considered
Boston “Brahmins,”1 though she could claim direct descent from four Mayflower
passengers. Caroline Rogers graduated from Barre High School in 1896, enrolled
at Wellesley College, and graduated from there in 1900. Her college transcript is
unremarkable, and there is no indication of a passion for art.
After earning her undergraduate degree, Caroline Rogers remained in Wellesley and embarked upon a business career that introduced her to the worlds of
finance and management and provided her with experience and skills that would
serve her well both in her service work and her management of her own affairs.
She worked at the Wellesley Tea Room, the Wellesley Inn, and for the College
News, each of which had been established by Wellesley College graduates for the
1
86
Boston’s upper class shared a number of characteristics in common--chief among them an affinity
for Beacon Hill, Unitarianism, and Harvard – which would continue to distinguish them through
World War I. See Farrell Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston. Albany
1993. See also Butler/Wacker/Balmer. Religion in American Life: A Short History. Oxford
2003. See also Story. The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard & the Upper Class, 1800-1870.
Middletown 1980.
In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
purpose of serving the Wellesley College community.2 She was actively involved
in all aspects of the incorporation process when the Wellesley Inn was incorporated and expanded,3 and Hill and her colleagues were recognized by the local and
national press as entrepreneurs expanding the opportunities for educated women
in the new century (Crawford 1903; Marks 1903). Hill was also actively involved
in the College News, a publication for which she served as business manager its
first year, business editor for two more, and as overseer of advertising for another.
In 1906 Caroline Rogers married the investment banker William Henry Hill
(1838-1913), a recent widower and father of eleven grown children.4 From the
time of her marriage, Caroline’s life changed dramatically, as she turned away
from a focus on business and towards education and philanthropic and volunteer
work. She enrolled in classes at Radcliffe College from 1908-1912, taking courses in the philosophy of education, sociology, and economics, and earning an MA
in 1912. Her philanthropic and volunteer work focused on organizations run by
women that provided education, support, and direct services to the poor, particularly women who were supporting families. The first of these organizations was
Denison House, a settlement house in Boston.5 Denison House made educational,
vocational, and social services available to neighborhood residents and sought to
break down class barriers between community residents. Hill served on the organization’s Executive Board (1907-1913) and as the organization’s treasurer for a
one-year term during that period.
In 1910 while still serving Denison House, Caroline Hill became actively involved in the Women’s Municipal League of Boston, which had been founded in
1908. Its work was carried out by various committees whose goal was to identify
2
3
4
5
The Wellesley Tea Room was founded in 1897 by two Wellesley alumna, while Caroline was at
the college. The Wellesley Inn was opened in 1902.
Caroline was secretary of the board of directors of the corporation, and she managed the Inn from
at least 1903-1906.
Despite the difference in age, by all accounts, the marriage was a happy one, and Hill’s
descendants kept in touch with Caroline until her death and those I have been in touch with have
fond memories of her to this day.
The College Settlements Association was founded in 1887 by two Wellesley College professors,
who would found Denison House five years later. The records of Dennison House do not show
Hill being involved there as an undergraduate. Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull
House in Chicago, the most well known of the settlement houses, in 1889.
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David Burzillo
the significant problems facing the people of the city of Boston, particularly those
that impacted the lives of women and families.6 Committees focused on a facet of a
larger area of concern including the environment (cleaning, ventilation, abatement
of noise, rats and flies), health (obstetrics, nursing support for expectant or new
mothers), work (social hygiene of occupations), the home (housing, cleaning), food
(milk delivery, ice cream and butter, markets), education (open-air schools), and
many others. Committees researched problems, sought to identify the best available solutions for them, and worked to ameliorate or eliminate them. Like Denison
House, women provided the energy, vision, and labor for this organization.
Caroline Hill served the League from at 1910 to 1915. Her most significant role
was as founder and chair of the “Social Hygiene Committee.”7 The issues studied
by the Social Hygiene Committee involved significant and controversial cultural
and moral issues of the day including sex education, family planning, prostitution,
and sexually transmitted diseases, among others.8 Progressive reformers attributed the “decline of the family” to delayed marriage, smaller families, and rising
divorce rates. Many of these reformers were also concerned about the impact of
sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution as well.9 Hill’s committee strove to
disseminate accurate, up-to-date scientific information about them in an effort to
6
7
8
9
88
Though the League sought to grapple with the most pressing issues of the day, when it came to
suffrage it was agnostic and welcomed both supporters and opponents of suffrage.
In introducing the new committee to the League’s supporters, the creation of the committee
was described as a case of “spontaneous generation” and as having sprung “fully formed from
the head of its parent, the chairman of the committee” Mrs. Hill (Bulletin April 1913:9). In
her first report for the League Hill contrasted the knowledge of social hygiene, possessed by
doctors, social workers, and psychologists with the lack of knowledge possessed by the general
public. The silence around the important issues of social hygiene demanded an end to the silence
surrounding them: “…the Committee on Social Hygiene of the League has set itself the task of
awakening the community to the dangers of a further continuance of this policy of silence and of
arousing the public conscience to do its duty; providing sex education for parents and for those
whose parents cannot or will not furnish it for them.” (Bulletin April 1913: 11).
Allen Brandt has written extensively about the history of sexually-transmitted diseases in recent
American history.
According to Brandt, one approach adopted by the social hygiene movement on sexually
transmitted diseases “contended that the best way to prevent infection was by adherence to a
sexual ethic that made it impossible to acquire an infection. Essentially this meant restricting
sexual relationships to marriage. The principal means of achieving this goal was through
education to encourage abstinence and the repression of prostitution, assumed to be the central
locus of infection” (Brandt 1988: 380).
In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
ensure that women had access to science-based information about sex and birth
control.10
Under Mrs. Hill’s leadership and that of her successor, the Committee organized a number of lecture series, as well as individual lectures, by doctors and
health experts and held mass meetings at area factories where experts addressed
groups of workers.11 In some cases the committee partnered with organizations
like Public Health Education Committee of the American Medical Association to
put on a lecture series. The Committee also supported organizations throughout
New England, particularly women’s clubs and the American Home and School
Association, that were seeking to provide education about these issues to its
members. In the spring of 1914 the committee helped bring these issues directly
to the public by sponsoring public performances of a play that focused on issues
of social hygiene, Damaged Goods (Les Avaries) by the French playwright Eugene Brieux, which dealt with the horrible impact of prostitution and sexually
transmitted disease on a young family.12 The committee worked with the Suffolk
District Medical Society and the Massachusetts Department of Health to bring
the play to Boston, motivated by the belief that the play “…teaches a vital lesson,
gives a clearer understanding of the fundamental facts of life, and the dangers of
the double standard of morality” (Bulletin January 1914: 23-24).
10 The creation of the Committee on Social Hygiene by the Women’s Municipal League came at
a time of growing interest in the question of “social hygiene” across the country, as reflected in
state-wide organizations like The Chicago Society for Social Hygiene (1907), the Connecticut
Society for Social Hygiene (1908), and the Oregon Society for Social Hygiene (1910). By
World War I, there were many national organizations as well: The American Purity Alliance, The
National Vigilance Committee, and the American Federation for Sex Hygiene merged to create
the American Social Hygiene Association, which would be a leader in the field for many years.
11 One of the doctors who advised the committee and delivered lectures for it was Dr. Hugh Cabot,
who was a professor of urology at Harvard Medical School, and later dean of the medical school
at the University of Michigan. His perspective on social hygiene is clear from the title of one of
his articles, “Education versus Punishment.”
12 The importance of education in addressing the many ills of social hygiene is well summed up
by the words of the doctor in Damaged Goods who treats the main character and delivers the
following message to his father in law: “All that is needed is for people to understand the nature
of this disease rather better. It would soon become the custom for a man who proposed for a girl’s
hand to add to the other things for which he is asked a medical statement of bodily fitness, which
would make it certain that he did not bring this plague into the family with him” (Brieux 1914:
231).
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David Burzillo
The League did not provide any public explanation for the dissolution of the
Committee, which was eliminated after a little over two years of work.13 But
if Caroline Hill was the driving force behind the committee, the death of her
husband during the committee’s first year of work would certainly help explain
her stepping away from an active role in directing the committee’s work. Her
decision to travel to Europe with her nephew removed her from any possibility
of overseeing the committee’s work on a regular basis. She returned to Boston
from Europe in the fall of 1914, just after the outbreak of hostilities, and within a
few months left for France to do relief work with children displaced by the war.14
She would remain in France for the duration of the war, returning to America for
short stints to raise money, to lecture about the conditions of refugee children in
France in support of the organization’s fundraising efforts, and collect materials
for distribution to refugees.
Hill worked with the Comité Franco-Americaine pour la protéction des enfants
de la frontière (The Franco-American Committee for Protection of the Children of
the Frontier), serving both as an executive committee member and as a volunteer
working directly with children in the Comité’s care.15 The Comité’s work focused
primarily on providing relief to child refugees from Belgium, Alsace, and northern France, who had lost their parents or had been sent to the Comité in Paris by
parents to get them away from war zones. Relief was provided to the children at a
series of “colonies” the Comité established throughout France.16 These colonies
were created in a variety of settings: convents, empty hotels, former orphanages,
artist studios, and estates made available by wealthy supporters of the Comité’s
13 The Amy Lowell Putnam papers do not provide information on the dissolution of the Committee.
14 Yearly trips between the United States and Europe would be common for Hill for most of the rest
of her life.
15 The Comité was organized in August 1914 to help children and families fleeing from areas
invaded or under attack by the Germans. The Comité was originally established by Frederic
Courdert of New York and M. Jean Cruppi, a former minister of foreign affairs and justice of
France. Relief work was already under way by the time Hill arrived with the colony at Nazelles
in Touraine that was established in November 1914. and the number of colonies established by
the Comité grew rapidly from that point on (Children June 1916).
16 There is much more to the story of her work in France than I can briefly sketch here. The centennial
of World War I has, among other things, helped raise awareness of the work of women in relief
organizations like the Comité, which has been previously underappreciated and understudied.
Scholars like Katherine Storr have tried to address this lacunae.
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In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
work. A colony typically supported between twenty and fifty children, with some
serving just boys or girls while others served both. Eventually two sanatoria were
also established for the care of tubercular children. While at the colonies, children
received food, shelter, clothing, education, and medical treatment in the hope of
achieving the Comité’s goal of making the lives of children in its care as normal
as possible.
Mrs. Hill’s work for the Comité focused on what she described as “…collecting, placing and visiting, children from devastated districts and broken homes.”17
The arrival of children in Paris was a particularly difficult time for many of them,
as most traveled without parents, and some were quite young. Accounts of Mrs.
Hill greeting the children emphasize her tenderness and her care in reassuring and
calming them.18 (See Fig. 1)
Mrs. Hill was responsible for administrating three of the Comité’s colonies.
The colony at Berck (Pas-de-Calais) for tubercular children, the colony for boys
and girls at Oulin, and the colony for boys at Rosay. She also performed a wide
range of other administrative tasks for the Comité, including investigating conditions at the colonies, travelling to the front, and at other times investigating potential locations for new colonies.19 Mrs. Hill also proved herself a great fundraiser.
17 This information comes from a one-page typed supplement on her war relief work that Mrs.
Hill provided with her Alumnae Questionnaire for Wellesley College. The Comité’s procedures
were established early in the war: children were sent to Paris where they were collected by
Mrs. Hill and others. The children were cleaned up, their clothes were washed, and they were
evaluated for their state of health and the presence of disease. Temporary housing was provided
in “depots” in and around Paris before the children were sent to “colonies” outside the city for
more long-term placement. When necessary, unhealthy children were sent to hospitals for care.
18 Gertrude Atherton, who visited France for three months during 1916 to observe the efforts of
French women to serve the war effort, was moved by the efforts of the American women she
observed in France, and included a chapter on them in her book. She noted Mrs. Hill’s work
with children, particularly in consoling the small children recently arrived by train. “While I
was in Paris Mr. Jaccaci and Mrs. Hill were meeting these trains; and, when the smaller children
arrived frightened and tearful they took them in their arms and consoled them all the way to the
Relief Depots” (Atherton1917: 173-74). Later in the same chapter she described another scene
in which “Mrs. Hill was kissing and hugging several little girls who had clung to her skirts. It
was, in spite of its origin, a happy scene” (181).
19 For example, “Have just come back from a week spent along 100 kilometers of the front and all
I can say is do keep busy for us, the need is tremendous, the frontier very long and the children
who are giving out under the strain of life there, and appealing to us to take them ever increasing
in number” (Hill to Hall, August 25, 1916, Hall Papers).
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David Burzillo
Fig. 1: Caroline Hill and Emilienne Delsalle, 1916. © FrancoAmerican Committee for the
Protection of Children of the
Frontier.
On trips back to the United States in 1916 and 1917 she raised money and publicized the plight of refugee children. Her talks about conditions in France were
supported by her personal stories of refugee children and photographs she had
taken.20 Hill was also actively involved in efforts to provide clothing for the children, which was accomplished with the support of many individuals in America.21
Hill was in regular communication with Constance Hall about the clothing needs
20 Lecturing about the situation in France was very important to her fundraising efforts, and to
support this work she reported taking over 4000 photographs and five “reel” films (Rogers,
Caroline).
21 Caroline Hill provided very specific information about the needs of the Comité Constance Hall of
Cambridge, MA who served as chair of The New England Clothing Committee. She coordinated
the acquisition of materials, the cutting of them, the sewing, and the packing of them. Towns,
schools, businesses, and individuals contributed to the work. Finished goods were sent to New
York City, to the War Relief Clearing House, for shipment to France (Hall Papers).
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In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
of the refugees in the Comité’s care. For her efforts on behalf of refugee children,
Caroline Hill was awarded the Medal of Elizabeth (by the Queen of the Belgians)
and the Médaille de la Reconnaissance française by the government of France.
The end of the war did not bring much of a slowdown for Caroline, who travelled to England and Scotland in early November 1918 to complete a study of
child welfare in some of England’s major cities (Hall Papers). Her postwar work
also included a tour of northeastern France with Corinna Haven Smith to assess
the progress of recovery efforts in post-war France. “Rising Above the Ruins,” a
book she co-authored with Smith, was the product of this tour, which sought to
publicize the efforts of the French people to rebuild their country.22
Mrs. Hill was forty years old when her tour of northern France ended, and
she was ready to embark on a new chapter in her life. This chapter would focus
squarely on art. It is not clear why Caroline Hill chose to make this shift and
focus her time and energy on sculpture and painting. Other than taking two art
classes as an undergraduate, and visiting some European art museums in 1914-and more perhaps while she was in France during the war--Caroline Hill does
not seem to have engaged with art in a significant way up to that point in her
life.23 It is clear, though, that she embraced art at this time with the same drive
that motivated her work for the League and her work with refugees in World War
I. She moved to Paris, lived the life of an artist, studied with some of the city’s
most famous teachers, attended art shows, visited museums, and she spent her
time sculpting and painting. In addition, she became a collector of works of art
from many periods of history, spanning the history of art from ancient Rome to
modern France.
22 After the war Smith and Hill investigated the devastation to northern France and visited many
regions that refugee children they had served came from. They were moved by the plight of the
families they visited and their efforts to rebuild their war-torn country. “When, on returning to
America, we heard on every hand expressions of doubt as to whether the French people were
doing their share toward overcoming the difficulties resulting from the war, we felt that in loyalty
to our brave friends of the north we would like to tell the story of their effort as we had seen it”
(Smith/Hill 1920:vii).
23 At Wellesley College Hill simply fulfilled the graduation requirement, taking two introductory
level courses. The Fine Arts Department did offer courses in the history of sculpture, history of
painting, Italian painting, and Greek sculpture—topics that Mrs. Hill would show a keen interest
in later in life.
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David Burzillo
Unfortunately, given the dearth of personal material, there are more questions
than answers about Caroline Hill’s art career compared with her other activities
which are easier to trace in the records of public organizations.24 There is no diary
or a collection of papers with which to trace the evolution of her interest in art and
or trace her evolution as an artist.
An additional gap in understanding her art career regards the nature of the corpus that remains. One of her nephews, Robert C. Rogers, reported that “the contents of her studio were transported to the Paris memorial service and those attending allowed to take away whatever they wished.” Evidently many works that were
not taken were simply discarded, though some were brought back to the United
States by family members. Members of both the Rogers and Hill families possess
a small number of her works.25 A majority of her paintings exist only in the form of
slides of her work, and are in the collection at the National Museum of Women in
the Arts, in Washington, DC. These slides were discovered by accident by Annette
Merlis, who purchased the slides at an antique store on Long Island, a discovery
that inspired her to begin investigating the story of Caroline Hill to find out more
about the woman who created them. A number of these slides lack titles or dates,
and this is also true of a number of the surviving paintings.
Caroline Hill’s informal study of art began shortly after the war when she
returned to Europe to explore the great museums of Europe. Her passport application from December 1922 shows that she was already in Berlin studying art
at the time, having left the United States in December 1921. She noted in the
application that the purpose of her trip was “study.” She listed her destinations as:
Germany, England, France, Italy, Poland, “and other necessary countries.” She
made this passport application in Berlin, but asked that the passport be forwarded
to Florence. Hill was an avid museum visitor and art collector, and it is likely that
a lot of her time in these years was devoted to these activities.
Mrs. Hill’s first significant training in art would come at the Académie de la
Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse where she was a student of Antoine Bour24 Unfortunately, Caroline Hill did not leave behind any writing that would explain this. She did
not keep a diary. A few letters have survived, some of which were kindly shared with me by
Dominique Bermann Martin of the Association André Lhote. She also shared some personal
information with the Wellesley and Radcliffe College Alumnae offices, but these are bullet points.
25 Linn Trowbridge, recently deceased, had about 15 paintings.
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In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
delle (1861-1929) from 1927-1932. While the Académie was known for its training in both painting and sculpture, it is not clear if Mrs. Hill did any training in
painting, and almost no specific records remain from her time there. Five of the
first six pieces she exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries were sculptures, suggesting
that this was her sole focus in her early years in Paris.26
Her formal relationship with André Lhote (1885-1962) lasted from 1933-1936,
though she would continue to visit Lhote and correspond with him in the 1940s
and 1950s. These letters and postcards touch on many issues beyond painting,
and they suggest a close bond of friendship between Hill and Lhote that went far
beyond the teacher-student relationship and continued long after she left the Académie. Many of her surviving works that can be dated come from the year 1933,
so she appears to have been painting very actively during this time. She exhibited
a number of paintings at the salon during 1930s, including at the Salon des Tuileries in 1934, 1935, 1936, 1938, and 1939, and she exhibited multiple works at the
majority of these salons. Her focus on painting continued after she left the Académie, and in 1940 she reported to the Radcliffe Alumni Association that “Painting
is now my active & sole interest.” (Radcliffe College Alumnae Information Form,
1940. Radcliffe College Alumnae Association (RCAA), Deceased alumnae files.)
Her surviving works show that she developed a distinctive style and painted
landscapes, portraits, and still-lifes. Besides painting scenes that clearly capture
the places and life of Paris, she also painted when she traveled, and there are paintings from Alamanarre in southern France and from Venice. Other than a few portraits that are identified as being of her mother, and a work that is titled “Spanish
Refugees,” it is not possible to identify the people in her images. (See Fig. 2-6)
At the start of World War II Caroline Hill was sixty-four years old, but this
second world crisis would lead to more refugee work and another major shift in
her life. In the spring of 1940 she began to work on behalf of the National War
Fund, which provided relief and financial assistance in war-torn areas. She managed to flee from Paris on the eve of the German invasion, making it to Bordeaux.
In September 1940 she was asked to help organize relief work for women and
children in Marseilles by the organization Secours Quaker. She returned to New
York and was there for much of the period from July 1941 to June 1945, working
26 Unfortunately I have not been able to locate any images of her sculptural work.
95
David Burzillo
Fig. 2: Untitled landscape by Caroline
Hill. Courtesy of Randy Trowbridge. (top)
Fig. 3: Untitled portrait by Caroline Hill.
Courtesy of the Rivers School. (bottom)
96
In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
Fig. 4: Untitled portrait by Caroline Hill.
Courtesy of the Rivers School. (top right)
Fig. 5: Untitled landscape by Caroline Hill.
Courtesy of Tod Hill. (top left)
Fig. 6: Untitled portrait by Caroline Hill.
Courtesy of Tod Hill. (bottom)
97
David Burzillo
for American Aid to France. While her work focused on coordinating food and
medicine shipments to France, she took Red Cross classes on nutrition, and at the
New School she passed an exam certifying her for modern relief work. She also
took a course focused on camouflage at Harvard, as well as courses at Simmons
College (Boston) on “nutrition” and “emergency feeding.”
While she was not able to provide direct relief to refugees for much of the
war, she was able to after the war’s completion. She worked from June 1945 to
June 1950 as head of food distribution for American Relief to France.27 In 1950
she supported the House of Students, which had been created by the University of
Paris through her generosity.28 She also resumed painting at this time. For her
work on behalf of refugees during World War II, Mrs. Hill was again awarded the
Médaille de la Reconnaissance française, and her work after the war was recognized by multiple French ministries.
In the final years of her life she remained active, travelling, visiting museums,
and studying the Papago Indians of the Southwestern United States, She was exploring Toltec ruins in Mexico when she died in 1965.
Like other New Women of the late-19th and early 20th century Caroline Rogers Hill challenged the status quo in a number of important ways. These challenges included her choice to remain single for most of her life; her pursuit of her
ever-evolving interests--business, service, art, and service again; and her embrace
of radical social and cultural ideas, like social hygiene and cubism. Her artistic
skill and corpus by themselves may not support her inclusion in a list of the most
important artists trained by Lhote, but the way she combined service to humanity
and art surely makes her one of Lhote’s most unique students.
27 50,000 children were served by this program in 1948-1949 alone. She emphasized “the giving of
aid to physically deficient children and in establishing a program for three or six months, during
which time an additional 300 calories daily would be supplied to these children in the forms of
dried milk, cocoa and sugar, biscuits (fortified with calcium), jam and butter or oleo” (Kowza
1950).
28 This helped fund medical exams, rest rooms, restaurants, nurseries for children of married
students, a laundry, gyms, and assembly hall for students.
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In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the support of Donald Hill IV, Tod Hill,
Randy Trowbridge, Stephen Rogers, and the Rivers School.
References
Alumnae Association (RCAA), Deceased alumnae files, RG IX, Series 2. Schlesinger
Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
An Account of the Women’s Municipal League of Boston as Given at the First Public
Meeting, January 20, 1909. Boston 1909.
Atherton, G. The Living Present. New York 1917.
Brandt, A. No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States
Since 1880. Oxford 1987.
Brandt, A. The Syphilis Epidemic and its Relation to AIDS, Science 239/1988: 375-380.
Brieux, E. Damaged Goods: By Brieux. Member of the French Academy. Trans. John
Pollock. London 1914.
Butler, J./ Wacker, G./ Balmer, R., Religion in American Life: A Short History. Oxford 2003.
Cabot, H. Education versus Punishment as a Remedy for Social Evils, Report of the Sex
Education Sessions of the Fourth International Congress on School Hygiene. New
York 1913.
Children of the Frontier Report. 1916-1919.
Clarke, Alma Papers. Bryn Mawr College Archives. Bryn Mawr, PA
Crawford, M. New Occupations of Educated Women, New Outlook 74/1903: 517-522.
Damaged Goods, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 169/12/1913: 842.
Denison House Records, 1890-1984. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Farrell, B. Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston. Albany 1993.
Hall, Constance Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hill, Caroline. Deceased alumnae files. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard
University.
99
David Burzillo
Hill, Caroline. Student files, ca. 1890-1926. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute,
Harvard University
Hill, Caroline, vertical file, “National Museum of Women in the Arts, Library and
Research Center.” Washington, D.C.
Hill, C. Concerning the Old House Standing at the Corner of Chestnut and Wellesley
Streets Weston. A Paper Written for and read at a meeting of the Girls’ Friendly Society
of the First Parish Church, Weston, November 1908.
Hill, C. The Old Rand House. Massachusetts Magazine: A Quarterly Magazine Devoted
to Massachusetts History, Geneaology, and Biography. 3/1909.
Kowza, I. Former Barre Woman Active in Relief in Foreign Lands, August 8, 1950.
“Rogers, Caroline,” Alumnae Biographical Files, 7B/Class of 1900, Wellesley College
Archives, Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Marks, J. A College Inn, Good Housekeeping 36/6/1903: 496.
McClintock, J. William H. Hill. Massachusetts Magazine: A Quarterly Magazine Devoted
to Massachusetts History, Geneaology, and Biography. 3/1910.
Putnam, Amy Lowell Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Radcliffe College, Announcement of Courses of Instruction for 1909-10.
“Rogers, Caroline,”Alumnae Biographical Files, 7B/Class of 1900, Wellesley College
Archives, Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Ronnebeck, A. Bourdelle Speaks to His Pupils From a Paris Diary, The Arts 8/10/1925:
206-221.
Sanchez, P. Dictionnaire du Salon des Tuileries, volume II, 1923-1962. Dijon 2007.
Smith, C/Hill, C., Rising Above the Ruins; An account of the progress made since the armistice in the devastated regions in reestablishing industrial activities and the normal
life of the people. New York 1920.
Smith, Corinna Lindon Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Smith-Rosenberg, C. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New
York 1985.
Storr, K. Excluded from the Record: Women, Refugees, and Relief, 1914-1929. New York
2009.
Story, R. The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard & the Upper Class, 1800-1870.
Middletown 1980.
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In Service of Art and Humanity: The Lives of Caroline Rogers Hill
Student files, ca. 1890-1926, RG XXI, Series 1. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Women’s Municipal League of Boston Bulletin. Volumes 1-7. Boston 1909-1916.
Worrell, D. The Women’s Municipal League of Boston: A History of Thirty-Five Years of
Civic Endeavor. Boston 1943.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Caroline Hill and Emilienne Delsalle, 1916. © Franco-American Committee for
the Protection of Children of the Frontier.
Fig. 2: Untitled landscape by Caroline Hill. Private Collection. Courtesy of Randy
Trowbridge. Photograph by Randy Trowbridge.
Fig. 3: Untitled portrait by Caroline Hill. Private Collection. Courtesy of the Rivers
School. Photograph by Randy Trowbridge.
Fig. 4: Untitled portrait by Caroline Hill. Private Collection. Courtesy of the Rivers
School. Photograph by Randy Trowbridge.
Fig. 5: Untitled landscape by Caroline Hill. Private Collection. Courtesy of Tod Hill.
Photograph by Tod Hill.
Fig. 6: Untitled portrait by Caroline Hill. Private Collection. Courtesy of Tod Hill.
Photograph by Tod Hill.
101
André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and
Modernism: An Important Teacher-student
Relationship Lasting Five Decades
Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
ABSTRACT
In 2017, the Swedish art museum Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde arranged an
extensive exhibition based on new research dedicated to André Lhote and his
great influence on Swedish Modernist artists and on Swedish Cubism and
Modernism, in the period c. 1910–1960. The exhibition entitled Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism was the first of its kind and featured 52
out of the c. 200 identified Swedish students of Lhote.
This article is based on the results from the research made in connection
with the exhibition, with a special focus on the early Lhote students Georg
Pauli and Prince Eugen as well as on the reception of André Lhote, as a teacher
and art essayist, among artists and in Swedish art history. The essay also lists
a number of interviews with Swedish artists and provides some insight into
Lhote’s teaching method and its reception by Swedish artists.
In recent years, the art museum Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde in Stockholm has
featured many oeuvres and art movements of Swedish late 19th and 20th century
art that are today more or less forgotten. The museum has also spotlighted the
influence of artist colonies and the so-called académies libres on Swedish artists
during this period. In 2014, Waldemarsudde organized a major exhibition, Inspiration Matisse! highlighting the influence of Académie Matisse and the teaching
of Henri Matisse on Swedish early Modernists. The exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism (Fig. 1), arranged in the autumn of 2017,
can be seen as a sequel to Inspiration Matisse!, which similarly focused on the
importance of a teacher-student relationship. Our exhibition of 2017, featuring
Lhote and his influence on Swedish Modernism and Cubism during the period c.
103
Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Fig. 1: Main Gallery Hall, Waldemarsudde from the Form and Colour. André Lhote and
Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018 exhibition. Centred on back wall: Pauli, Georg, Bathing
Youths, 1914, oil on canvas, 175 x 132 cm, Nationalmuseum. Left: Lhote, André, Port
of Bordeaux, 1912, oil on canvas, 106 x 131 cm, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde. © Prins
Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt © ADAGP.
1910–1960, was the first of its kind and as such it required a vast amount of basic
research, reflections and analysis (Meister / Sidén 2017). From an international
point of view, too, our exhibition was the first ever to have focused on the impact
of the teachings of André Lhote on a number of Modernist artists from a specific
country and, indeed on the country’s Modernist and Cubist movements.
In the course of his career, Lhote had an impressive number of students, numbering some 2 000 from Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia, India
and Egypt. Some 200 of Lhote´s students, covering a period of over five whole
decades, came from Sweden, starting in the early 1910s with Georg Pauli (1855–
1935) and a bit later, in 1913, Prince Eugen of Sweden (1865–1947). Eugen was
not only an important landscape painter and cultural personality on the Swedish
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
art scene at the time, he was also one of the country’s most important art collectors and later became the founder of the Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde museum.
Since the days of Prince Eugen, Waldemarsudde owns and maintains the largest collection of works in Sweden by the French painter, teacher and art essayist
André Lhote. Upon the advice of his close friend, the artist and Lhote student
Georg Pauli, Prince Eugen studied under the young Lhote in Paris in 1913, and
also started to collect works by the French painter. His first acquisitions were
made as early as 1912, including a version of Lhote´s famous composition Port of
Bordeaux and also the painting Reclining Nude. Two of his last purchases were the
paintings Recumbent Nude and In Praise of Geometry, bought in 1938 and 1941
respectively. In all, Eugen bought 17 works, of which 14 are oils or water colours
and three are pencil drawings (Wistman 2008).1 In the Waldemarsudde archives
there is a correspondence between Prince Eugen and André Lhote, which gives
interesting insights into these acquisitions and also into the Prince´s fascination
for Lhote´s views on art. Their contacts continued well into the 1930s. Prince Eugen met Lhote in Paris on several occasions; in September 1922, the French artist
and his first wife Marguerite were Prince Eugen´s guests at his summer house
Örgården, in the province of Östergötland, and a little later they stayed with Eugen
at Waldemarsudde. At a dinner-party during their stay with the Prince, Georg Pauli, the art critic Tor Hedberg with wife, and the German art historian Gustav Pauli,
were also invited. Lhote´s first solo show outside France was financed by Prince
Eugen and took place in 1913 at the SAK (Swedish Association of Art) venue in
Stockholm. This was followed by three more solo exhibitions of Lhote´s work
in Sweden, in 1916, 1923 and 1938, and Lhote also participated in several group
shows of French Modernist artists (Sidén 2017: 17-42). André Lhote´s first more
elaborate article on Cubism was published in 1917 in the Swedish magazine flamman (the Flame), founded by Georg Pauli. The following year, the same periodical
published Lhote´s detailed description of his teaching methods, which, along with
the oral accounts of artists who had studied under him, was probably instrumental
in persuading so many Swedish painters to choose him as their teacher.
1
For an overview of Prince Eugen’s acquisitions of art works by André Lhote and other artists, see
Christina G. Wistman, Manifestation och avancemang. Eugen: konstnär, konstsamlare, mecenat
och prins, PhD Thesis, Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Gothenburg University 2008.
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Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
The Reception of André Lhote in Swedish Art History
In the written overviews of Swedish Modernism and Cubism, André Lhote is often
mentioned, but only briefly and not at all in correlation to his great impact as a
teacher to Swedish artists for five whole decades (Sidén 2017). A possible reason for
this can be found in Lhote´s reputation as an artist and in his personal interpretation
of Cubism as an art movement and style. Like Gleizes and Metzinger, Lhote articulated his views on Cubism and how it can be classified. While Lhote ascribed himself to “French Cubism,” which never entirely became non-figurative, and which he
characterized as la nature organisée (organized nature), others, including the poet
Guillaume Apollinaire, claimed that Lhote was not really a Cubist at all, at least not
compared to artists like Picasso or Braque. Lhote was one of those artists who adopted whatever he felt to be of interest and of use in Cubism and that could be incorporated with his striving for “lyrical deformation.” With a few exceptions, Swedish
Cubism, like Lhote´s, was very modest. In Sweden, Lhote’s version of Cubism, as
well as his teaching ideals, were also highly appreciated among art critics and art
historians, in the 1910s and 1920s especially. Later, the reception changed, and not
in favor of Lhote, who was considered to be too modest as a Cubist or not a Cubist at
all in comparison to Picasso, Braque or Léger, for instance. Worth noting is the fact
that at the time when Swedish artists were first discovering André Lhote as a teacher,
there were several artists in Paris teaching and instructing students from around the
world, including Fernand Léger, Le Fauconnier and Amedée Ozenfant. The studios
of Léger and Lhote were geographically close in Montparnasse, and several artists
studied with both teachers during shorter or longer periods. Fernand Legér´s influence on Swedish and Nordic Cubism has been explored in detail, by art historians
and in exhibition contexts, including Léger and the Nordic Countries shown in 1992
at Ateneum in Helsinki, Moderna Museet in Stockholm and at Statens Museum for
Kunst in Copenhagen (Derouet / Helleberg / Öhman 1992).
Our exhibition and its adjoining catalogue from 2017, as a contrast, brought
attention to a previously overlooked aspect of Swedish Cubism, and Swedish
Modernism, namely that of Lhote´s importance as a teacher and influencer in
the period of 1910–1960. Many years previously, in 1967, art historian Anna
Lena Lindberg had submitted her unpublished but thorough study André Lhote
och hans svenska elever (André Lhote and his Swedish pupils) at the Depart106
André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
ment of Art History at University Lund (Lindberg 1967). In 1982, Inger Johanne
Galtung Døsvig published her extensive master´s thesis Det gode maleri. André
Lhotes tanker om malerkunsten (Good Painting. André Lhote´s Ideas on the Art
of Painting) at Bergen University (Galtung Døsvig 1982). Galtung Døsvig also
published two essays in the Swedish art history publication Konsthistorisk tidskrift, highlighting many intriguing discoveries about Lhote´s views on Cubism
as a style and movement in art (Galtung Døsvig 1983).2 Except for these studies
by Lindberg and Galtung Døsvig, hardly anything has been written about André
Lhote and his importance as a teacher and influencer on Swedish and other Nordic
Modernist artists.
In our exhibition, works by Swedish Lhote pupils were shown chronologically,
starting with Georg Pauli, Prince Eugen and other artists that studied with the
French painter in the 1910s, following up room by room with paintings from the
1920s up until the early 1960s. In each exhibition room we also displayed works
of art by Lhote himself from each decade, making it possible for the visitors to
study the stylistic influences of the teacher on his students. (Fig. 2)
In the exhibition, we focused on painting, drawing and photography but also on
how Cubist imagery, especially in the spirit of Lhote, could be transferred into
other media, including fine art objects, sculpture and poster art. Some of the questions raised and answered in the exhibition and its catalogue include: why for
five whole decades, so many Swedish artists chose Lhote as their teacher, what
the teacher-student relationship looked like, how it worked in practice, and how
it impacted on the artists’ works. Some of the answers concerning the practice of
Lhote´s teaching could be gotten thanks to us conducting interviews with several
of Lhote´s later Swedish students (more about these will follow later, see page
117.). Of importance was also the visit to Archives André Lhote in Paris and
the generous support of Madame Dominique Bermann-Martin. Several Swedish
art historians who specialize in Modernism, contributed valuable articles for our
catalogue, that brought into light many important aspects on Lhote´s great impact
as a teacher to many Swedish artists.
2
Inger Johanne Torstenson (Galtung Døsvig), André Lhote og den förste kubismen, Konsthistorisk
tidskrift, LIII, 1982: 125–132. And the same author in “André Lhote om den syntetiska
kubismen,” Konsthistorisk tidskrift, LIV, 1983: 27–32.
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Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Fig. 2: Lhote, André, In Praise of Geometry, undated. Oil on paper,130 x 97,5 cm, Prins
Eugens Waldemarsudde. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018. © Prins Eugens
Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt © ADAGP.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
Georg Pauli and André Lhote – How it all began
The archives of the Swedish Nationalmuseum hold, among much of interest, a
number of personal archives, containing photographs, correspondence and other
archival material. One such personal archive is that of Georg Pauli, in whose correspondence there is also a collection of letters from André Lhote – 99 letters and
156 postcards.3 The letters and cards in the other direction, from Georg Pauli to
André Lhote, are kept in the Archives André Lhote in Paris and number close to
100.4 In the research work for the exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and
Swedish Cubism, these letter collections were brought together and formed the basis of the article in the exhibition catalogue that dealt with Lhote and Pauli and their
relationship (Meister 2017: 77–115). Another important source was made up of the
extensive comments to the letters from Lhote, that Pauli wrote in the 1930s,5 as a
first step towards publishing André Lhote’s letters, an enterprise that never eventuated, unfortunately. Correspondence between André Lhote and Prince Eugen was
also used for the article, as well as other archival material from the Archives André
Lhote, kindly put at our disposal by its Keeper, Madame Bermann-Martin.
Georg Pauli played an important part in the life of André Lhote. Pauli had been
educated at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art, and in 1877, at the age of 20, he
left for Paris and France, where he spent the next four years. He was influenced
by plein air painting, but he also kept painting salon-style works and when he returned home to Sweden in 1887, he had painted many different motifs in various
genres. Pauli married fellow artist Hanna Hirsch and the couple settled in Stockholm. For the next two decades they spent most of their time painting in Sweden.
Pauli was also an author and wrote profusely. Initially, he published articles, and
these were later followed by books, in which he described and commented on
various parts of his life and also portrayed many of his fellow artists.
When Modernism in all its forms surfaced in the early 1900s, Pauli was around
50 years old, and like many of his generation, he was eager to keep up with the
new art movements. He read all the latest art reviews and books, and he also trav3
4
5
Nationalmuseum. The Letter Collection. Letters from André Lhote to Georg Pauli.
Archives André Lhote, Paris. Letters from Georg Pauli to André Lhote.
Nationalmuseum. The Letter Collection. Comments by Georg Pauli on the letters from André
Lhote to Pauli.
109
Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
elled to Paris several times, where he saw much Modernist art, some of which he
had a hard time understanding – a visit to Leo and Gertrude Stein’s home, where
he saw their Picassos, left him totally confused. This incident has been described
by Pauli himself in his book I Paris: nya konstens källa (In Paris: the source of
new art) (Pauli 1915: 46–47), in which he also described his entire stay in France
between 1911 and 1914.
Pauli temporarily took up residence in Paris in 1911, to work on a commission that he had received for a mural painting in Sweden. When he saw the Cubist
works that were shown at various Paris exhibitions, he thought that the Cubist
idiom would lend itself to his monumental work. At the Autumn Salon, he saw
paintings that baffled him, but also a painting that, in his own words, “gave him
a true experience of beauty” (Pauli 1915: 97–98) – it was André Lhote’s first version of The Port of Bordeaux from 1911. Pauli bought the painting and soon received a letter from the young artist, in which Lhote asked to meet Pauli. This was
the beginning of a warm friendship between the two artists, that would end only
with Pauli’s death in 1935. There was a big age difference between the two – 30
years – but this did not seem to matter at all. They genuinely liked one another and
later they and their families even spent some of their holidays together!
Georg Pauli asked Lhote for lessons in Cubism, thus becoming the first Swedish student of André Lhote. Pauli used what he learnt in the commissioned mural
painting. The work, entitled Mens Sana in Corpore Sano/A healthy mind in a
healthy body, became the first monumental Cubist work in Sweden and being so
modern, caused quite a public furore, at the time. Georg Pauli, in turn, instructed
Lhote in the art of mural painting. (Fig. 3)
When Pauli appeared in Lhote’s life, Lhote had had some success, but was
still very poor and lived in an apartment with only secondhand furniture, so one
can argue that it is through the meeting with Pauli, that Lhote’s career really took
off. In Pauli’s words: “Quite simply, to the young and poor artist, I represented a
herald from above – from the skies made of gold!!!”6
6
110
Nationalmuseum. The Letter Collection. Comments by Georg Pauli on the letters from André
Lhote to Pauli, no. 8, 1.10.1912.
André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
Fig. 3: Pauli, Georg, Mens sana in corpore sano (A healthy mind in a healthy body),
1912. One part of the diptych, placed in the school Jönköpings högre allmänna läroverk
(today the high school Per Brahegymnasiet), Jönköping, Sweden.
André Lhote and Prince Eugen
When Georg Pauli suggested that Prince Eugen should buy the second version of
Lhote’s Port of Bordeaux in 1912, the Prince readily agreed. Lhote wrote a ‘thank
you’ note to the Prince in which he said that the purchase would enable him to
paint all summer since he now had the economical means.7 This was the first contact between Lhote and Eugen.
7
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde. Prince Eugen’s Archive, The Letter Collection. Letter from André
Lhote to Prince Eugen, 11.6.1913.
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Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
In December 1912, Prince Eugen came to Paris and also paid Lhote a visit.
From comments in their respective correspondence, it would seem that Lhote and
the Prince were equally pleased with having made one another’s acquaintance.8
Like Pauli, Prince Eugen too, wanted to get an understanding of Cubism and
came to Paris again, in May 1913, where he was taught Cubist drawing by Lhote.
The Prince was a landscape painter, who had studied art in Paris between 1887
and 1889 with Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Léon Bonnat, among others. With
Georg Pauli and Pauli’s wife, painter Hanna Hirsch Pauli, Lhote took the Prince
out to the Chevreuse Valley south of Paris where he demonstrated how a Cubist drawing is constructed. Prince Eugen thought that Lhote was an excellent
teacher,9 but later stated that unlike Pauli, he had had no intention of becoming a
Cubist, he had just wanted to understand what Cubism was all about (Prince Eugen 1942: 369).10 The Prince made use of the teachings of Lhote in especially one
of his works – the 40 meter-long al fresco painting The City by the Water in the
Stockholm City Hall, which he worked at between 1916 and 1923.
Lhote Paintings in Sweden
Pauli also aided Lhote to establish a name for himself in Sweden, by helping to
sell his works there, and also by helping to organize further exhibitions of his
works. Quite a number of André Lhote paintings and drawings were privately
owned in Sweden up to around the middle of the 20th century. From what we can
gather from the Swedish auction houses, many of these works have now found
their way back to France and to other countries. As far as André Lhote paintings in
public ownership in Sweden goes, Waldemarsudde, as mentioned before, has the
biggest collection of works by Lhote. Other holdings include the early important
work Nevers, exhibited at the afore-mentioned Lhote exhibition in Stockholm in
8
Nationalmuseum. The Letter Collection. Comments by Georg Pauli on the letters from André
Lhote to Pauli, no. 15, 5.5.1913.
9 Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde. Prince Eugen’s Archive, The Letter Collection. Two letters dated
4.5 and 8.5.1913, from Prince Eugen to his mother Queen Sophia.
10 Comment by Prince Eugen to letters sent from him to his mother, Queen Sophia, 4.5 and 8.5.
1913, quoted in Prince Eugen. Breven berätta, Stockholm 1942: 369.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
1913, which was bought by Swedish art collector Ernest Thiel, whose home and
collections later became a public museum, Thielska galleriet. There is one Lhote
work in Gothenburg too, at the Art Museum11 and 10 works at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm – three oil paintings and seven drawings. Among the latter is a
drawing for the well-known Lhote motif Les joueurs de Rugby from 1920.
Early Swedisch André Lhote Students
Georg Pauli did more for André Lhote than help sell his paintings in Sweden; he
also made it public knowledge that André Lhote was a very good teacher and was
thus instrumental in sending a number of students to Lhote already before Lhote
had opened his own school and was still teaching at various art schools in Paris.
Lhote had started to teach already during World War I, in 1916, at l’Académie
Libre and when he wrote to Pauli about this, the latter wrote back:
“As you were born to be a teacher, I congratulate the students of the Académie
Libre.”12
After Lhote had taught for about 10 years, he opened his own school in 1925, at
rue d’Odessa. Thus, Georg Pauli and Prince Eugen were followed by many Swedish artists who studied with Lhote all the way from the 1910s and up to Lhote’s
death in 1962. Some notable Swedish students from the 1910s to the 1920s include sculptors Christian Berg and Elsa Danson Wåghals and painters Dick Beer,
Greta Knutson-Tzara, Agda Holst, Iwar Donnér, Maj Bring and Torsten Jovinge.
(Fig. 4)
When we started doing the research for the exhibition Form and Colour. André
Lhote and Swedish Cubism, we had a list of 164 Swedish artists, known to have
been the students of Lhote. The names of these students came from an encyclopedia of Swedish art and artists, Svenskt konstnärslexikon, which was published
11 The Göteborgs konstmuseum owns a version painted in 1918 of La Bacchante from 1912. The
Swedish version is entitled Picnic.
12 Archives André Lhote, Paris. Letter from Georg Pauli to André Lhote, 25.9.1916.
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Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Fig. 4: Donnér, Iwar, 3 Film posters, all 99,5 x 70 cm, private collection. From the Waldemarsudde exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018. ©
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt.
1952 to 1967, and the list had been compiled by Anna Lena Lindberg in 1967
(Lindberg 1967). While we were working on the Waldemarsudde project, 20 more
names were added to the list of students and during the exhibition itself, which
was shown between September 2017 and January 2018, we were made aware of
yet more students – so the number of Swedish Lhote students is approaching 200
(Form och färg 2017: 331–334),13 with surely more to be added in the future! The
students came from all walks of life and all of them had had some artistic schooling before they set off for France. There was a definite surge of students after
the two world wars, when the world opened up again to travelling and cultural
exchange.
13 A list of Swedish Lhote students can be found in the Waldemarsudde exhibition catalogue Form
och färg. André Lhote och svensk kubism / Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism,
Stockholm 2017: 331–334.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
Of the Swedish students that were taught by André Lhote, around 40 per cent
were women. This seems to be a high percentage compared to other countries.
Why this is the case has not been researched properly, but some contributing factors could be that Swedish women artists had been admitted to the Royal Academy of Art already in 1864 (in France e.g., this was not the case until 1897), and
that there was a tradition already in the 19th century of women travelling abroad to
complete their studies or try to get their works admitted at the Salon and similar
institutions.
The high percentage of women students at Lhote’s school was mirrored in the
Waldemarsudde exhibition, where 42 per cent of the works shown were by women
artists. Some of the more famous Swedish female artists to have studied with Lhote
include sculptor and painter Elsa Danson Wåghals (Fig. 5), painters Agda Holst,
Siri Derkert, Greta Knutson-Tzara, Vera Meyerson, Maj Bring and painter and
ceramist Tyra Lundgren. In the exhibition, we showed works by some 50 Lhote
students and we tried to select works that were painted or created as close to the
various artists’ study time with Lhote as possible. We did not only show paintings,
but also sculpture, tapestries, textiles, decorative art objects and photography, all of
which of course exhibited influences of André Lhote and Cubism!
Interviews with former André Lhote Students
When working with the exhibition, we found that a handful of former Lhote students were still alive, and, as mentioned before, we decided to interview as many
as possible of these, to get first-hand knowledge of the students’ views of André
Lhote as a teacher. A compilation of these interviews, conducted with six artists –
one gentleman and five ladies – was presented in the catalogue, and quotes from
the interviews were also presented in the exhibition. The artists were: Jan-Erik
Frisendahl, born 1928, who studied with Lhote in the winter of 1947–1948; Gunnel Heineman, born 1921, studied with Lhote 1948–1949; Gull Rosdahl, born in
1922, studied with Lhote in 1949; Gunnel Kjellgren-Björkström, born 1926, studied with Lhote in 1952; Birgit Alm-Pons studied with Lhote in 1957 and Adele
Änggård, born 1933, studied with Lhote 1961–1962. All of the students were
115
Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Fig. 5: Wåghals, Elsa Danson, Composition, teak, h: 55; w:43,1928, Östergötlands museum. In the background, Derkert, Siri, Riders, 1916–17, oil on canvas, 54 x 51,5 cm, private
collection. From the Waldemarsudde exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018. © Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt.
painters, except Änggård who worked as a scenographer and Kjellgren-Björkström who became a textile artist.
All of the artists that were interviewed had enjoyed their time with Lhote, and
most thought that he had been a very good teacher, who had allowed them to develop in their own directions without wanting to influence them too much in any
specific way. Here is one quote about Lhote’s teachings, from Adele Änggård, an
assistant to British theatre and film director Peter Brook in his work with some
Royal Shakespeare Company productions: “Lhote meant a lot to me as a pedagogue. I have carried his teachings – colour and form – with me and used them in
my profession as a scenographer” (Form and Colour 2017: 307).14
14 Quote from interviews with Adele Änggård made by Anna Meister and Daniel Prytz, 20.10.2016
and 10.5.2017, Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, Exhibition Catalogue, Prins
Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm 2017: 307.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
In the exhibition, there was also a longer audio interview with one of the women artists, Gunnel Heineman, in which one glimpsed what kind of a person André
Lhote was – apparently, as well as having well-developed pedagogical skills, he
also had a good sense of humor! Lhote was a prolific author too, who wrote not
only about contemporary and older art and artists, but also presented his own pedagogical program in several publications, which Heineman read and approved of.
To do these interviews with former Lhote students was both very rewarding
and educative, and the result was appreciated by visitors to the exhibition as well
as by journalists in their reviews of the exhibition.
Late Students at Académie André Lhote
As has been shown above, André Lhote´s influence on Swedish Cubism was especially important in the 1910s and 1920s. Later on, new art movements such as Surrealism, Expressionism and, from the late 1940s, Concrete Art and in the 1950s,
Informalism, became strong tendencies on the Swedish art scene. The positive experience from the earlier pupils of Lhote were spread to the younger generation of
artists, which explains why so many Swedish painters went to l’Académie Lhote
as late as in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. For them Lhote´s teaching, i.e.
composition and drawing, were of the utmost importance, although some of them
later chose to work in totally different directions than the teacher himself. Among
the artists that studied with Lhote from the 1940s through to the early 1960s, several are noteworthy, e.g. Lars Gynning (Fig. 6), Olle Bærtling, Philip von Schantz,
Laila Prytz, Gunnel Heineman, Gösta Werner, Sixten Lundbohm, Birgit Alm-Pons,
Adele Änggård, Jan Erik Friesendal, Gull Rosdahl and the photographer Christer
Strömholm. The latter, now considered as one of the most important Swedish photographers ever, used the knowledge of geometrical composition from Lhote in
some of his early photos from the late 1940s and early 1950s (Tellgren 2017: 199–
210). Some interview excerpts highlight how Lhote’s methods were perceived:
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Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Fig. 6: Works by Gynning, Lars, (centre) Migratory Birds, 1951, cartoon for tapestry,
145 x 222 cm, (far right) My Garden, undated, woven tapestry, 135 x 105 cm, (far left) In
the Studio, undated, woven tapestry, 153 x 89 cm, all private collection. From the Waldemarsudde exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018.
© Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt.
Bengt Lindström (1925–2008), who studied with Lhote in 1947:
“Lhote was the great theoretician who penned astute writings about how one
should paint. From him one acquired a profound knowledge in image analysis.”15
Jan-Erik Frisendahl (b. 1928), who studied with Lhote in the winter of 1947–1948:
“Back then I thought the pedagogy rather superficial and that one, as it were,
saw through Lhote as a teacher, but now I think Lhote was a good teacher and
the teachings from his school did seep in without one really noticing” (Form and
Colour 2017: 299).16
15 Quote from Anders Lindén, Bengt Lindström, Stockholm 1985.
16 Quote from interview with Jan Erik Frisendahl made by Anna Meister and Daniel Prytz,
27.1.2017, Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, exhibition catalogue, Prins
Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm 2017: 299.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
Gunnel Heineman (b.1921), who studied with Lhote 1948–1949:
“I learnt very much about composition and colours. He explained very well and
I understood exactly what he meant. Sometimes he painted parallelly to demonstrate what he said. Many pupils thought he was boring, but I thought he was a
wonderful teacher” (Form and Colour 2017: 301).17
Olle Bærtling (1911–1981), who studied with Lhote in 1948:
“When [Bærtling] sought out André Lhote he, for the first time, found an experienced tutor, who supported his views and his painting experiments. But Lhote
was totally uncomprehending about the heavy brushstrokes of black with which
Bærtling framed his volumes, and daily asked Bærtling to remove the broad contours. One day, Bærtling lost his patience and left Lhote’s school and went to
Fernand Léger instead“ (Reutersvärd 1967).
Philip von Schantz (1928–1998), who studied with Lhote in 1951:
“Lhote was a shortish man, always dressed in a white painting smock and one of
those green sun visors on his forehead that all editors wear in American films. In
his pocket, he always had a bunch of postcards with images of famous artworks
from various countries and eras. Before a pupil’s work, he would take out the pack
of cards and pick out a painting in which one could recognize the pupil’s difficulty
and see how a master had tackled it. --- Lhote’s analysis of the composition of an
image was often prompt and astute“ (Schantz 1997).
Gunnel Kjellgren-Björkström (b. 1926), who studied with Lhote in 1952:
“Lhote came once a week and posed the model and arranged still lifes in the spirit
of Cézanne. He also gave criticism once a week. He was rather quiet and respectful and kind to the pupils” (Form and Colour 2017: 303).18
17 Ibid. Quote from interview with Gunnel Heineman made by Anna Meister, 28 October 2016:
301.
18 Quote from interview with Gunnel Kjellgren-Björkström made by Anna Meister 7.6.2017,
Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, Exhibition Catalogue, Prins Eugens
Waldemarsudde, Stockholm 2017: 303.
119
Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Conclusion
Our exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism featured 52
out of the (to date) c. 200 identified Swedish students of Lhote. 42 per cent of the
works on display were by women artists and many of them had been previously
ignored.
The exhibition and adjoining catalogue, as well as this article, have all been
based on new research dedicated to André Lhote and his great influence on Swedish
Modernist artists, on Swedish Cubism and Modernism, in the period 1910–1960.
Our exhibition was very well received in all the main Swedish newspapers as
well as among researchers in the field of art history. It is our hope that our research
efforts will not only contribute in bringing attention to a previously overlooked
but important teacher-student relationship in Swedish art history, but that it will
encourage further exhibitions, studies and research both nationally and internationally.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the following persons for being very forthcoming with
making archival material readily available for the research of the Waldemarsudde
exhibition project Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism:
Mme Dominique Bermann-Martin, Archives André Lhote, Paris, France
Archivist Ms Gertrud Nord, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden
The authors also wish to warmly thank the other contributors to the Waldemarsudde exhibition catalogue:
Marika Bogren, Viveca Bosson, Margareta Gynning, Stefan Hammenbeck,
Anna Lena Lindberg, Louise Lyberg, Daniel Prytz, Birgit Rausing and Anna
Tellgren.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
References
Derouet, C., Helleberg, M., Öhman, N. (eds.), Léger och Norden/Léger and the Nordic
Countries, Exhibition Catalogue, Moderna Museet, Stockholm 1992.
Eugen, Prince. Breven berätta/The Letters Tell. Stockholm 1942.
Galtung-Døsvig, I. J., Det gode maleri. André Lhotes tanker om malerkunsten/Good
Painting. André Lhote’s thoughts on the art of painting, Master Thesis, Bergen University 1982.
Lindberg, A. L., André Lhote och hans svenska elever efter 1918. Tio intervjuer/André
Lhote and his Swedish students after 1918. Ten interviews, MA Thesis, Department of
Art History, Lund University, 1967
Lindén, A., Bengt Lindström, Stockholm 1985.
Meister, A., “‘Att förstå det nya som skall fram’. Georg Pauli och prins Eugen – de första
svenska Lhoteeleverna,” Form och färg. André Lhote och svensk kubism/“‘To understand the new art that will break through.’ Georg Pauli and Prince Eugen – the first
Swedish Lhote students,” Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism. Exhibition Catalogue, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde 2017: 77–115.
Meister, A. & Sidén, K. (eds.), Form och färg. André Lhote och svensk kubism/Form and
Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, Exhibition Catalogue, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm 2017.
Pauli, G., I Paris, nya konstens källa. Anteckningar ur dagböcker och bref/In Paris, the
source of new art. Notes from diaries and letters. Stockholm 1915.
Reutersvärd, O., Den öppna formens dramaturg/The dramatist of the open form, Stockholm 1967.
von Schantz, P., Fiskens tecken/Star Sign Pisces, Stockholm 1997.
Sidén, K., “André Lhote – målare, konstskribent och pedagog,” Form och färg. André
Lhote och svensk kubism/“André Lhote – painter, art essayist and teacher,” Form
and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, Exhibition Catalogue, Prins Eugens
Waldemarsudde 2017: 17–42.
Tellgren, A., “Konst och fotografi. Henri Cartier-Bresson och Christer Strömholm”/“Art
and photography. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Christer Strömholm,” Form and Colour.
André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, Exhibition Catalogue, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm 2017: 199–210.
121
Karin Sidén, Anna Meister
Torstenson, I. J., “André Lhote og den förste kubismen”/“André Lhote and early Cubism,”
Konsthistorisk tidskrift, LIII, 1982: 125–132.
Torstenson, I. J., “André Lhote om den syntetiska kubismen”/“André Lhote on Synthetic
Cubism,” Konsthistorisk tidskrift, LIV, 1983: 27–32.
Wistman, C.G., Manifestation och avancemang. Eugen: konstnär, konstsamlare, mecenat
och prins/Manifestation and Promotion. Eugen: Artist, Art Collector, Patron of the
Arts and Royal Prince, PhD Thesis, Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Gothenburg
University 2008.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Main Gallery Hall, Waldemarsudde from the Form and Colour. André Lhote
and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018 exhibition. Centred on back wall: Pauli, Georg,
Bathing Youths, 1914, oil on canvas, 175 x 132 cm, Nationalmuseum. Left: Lhote,
André, Port of Bordeaux, 1912, oil on cancas, 106 x 131 cm, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde. © Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt © ADAGP.
Fig. 2: Lhote, André, In Praise of Geometry, undated. Oil on paper,130 x 97,5 cm, Prins
Eugens Waldemarsudde. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018. © Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt © ADAGP.
Fig. 3: Pauli, Georg, Mens sana in corpore sano (A healthy mind in a healthy body),
1912. One part of the diptych, placed in the school Jönköpings högre allmänna läroverk
(today the high school Per Brahegymnasiet), Jönköping, Sweden.
Fig. 4: Donnér, Iwar, 3 Film posters, all 99,5 x 70 cm, private collection. From the Waldemarsudde exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018.
© Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt.
Fig. 5: Wåghals, Elsa Danson, Composition, teak, h: 55; w:43,1928, Östergötlands
museum. In the background, Derkert, Siri, Riders, 1916–17, oil on canvas, 54 x 51,5
cm, private collection. From the Waldemarsudde exhibition Form and Colour. André
Lhote and Swedish Cubism, 2017–2018. © Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by
Lars Engelhardt.
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André Lhote’s Impact on Swedish Cubism and Modernism
Fig. 6: Works by Gynning, Lars, (centre) Migratory Birds, 1951, cartoon for tapestry,
145 x 222 cm, (far right) My Garden, undated, woven tapestry, 135 x 105 cm, (far
left) In the Studio, undated, woven tapestry, 153 x 89 cm, all private collection. From
the Waldemarsudde exhibition Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish Cubism,
2017–2018. © Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde / photo by Lars Engelhardt.
123
Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with
André Lhote
Vesna Burojević
ABSTRACT
Sava Šumanović (1896–1942) has been recognized by Serbian art history as
one of its most important representatives and the one who introduced modernism to Serbian painting. He is also considered one of the central conveyors
of post-cubism and constructivism in Serbia. Šumanović was the first painter
from Serbia who studied at painter and teacher André Lhote’s Academy in Paris. The development of Šumanović’s style is presented by discerning the different periods of his work, and by placing emphasis on Šumanović’s Parisian
periods, which clearly show the influence and application of André Lhote’s
theory.
Šumanović is one of the most important and renowned Serbian painters of the
first half of the 20th century. Sava Šumanović dedicated his life to his work. In his
short life he painted over 800 oil paintings on canvases and just as many drawings. He is the artist who created “The Drunken Boat”, considered to be the most
important Serbian painting of the 20th century and the monumental series “Bathers”. Šumanović lived to be 46 years of age. He was killed by occupational forces
during World War II, shot alongside 120 other Serbian victims.
Sava Šumanović was born in 1896 into a wealthy, middle class intellectual
and progressive-thinking family. At a young age he wanted to commit himself
completely to painting and obtain the necessary education to achieve this. As a
ten-year-old boy Sava Šumanović enrolled in the Zemun High School, wherefrom
he went to Zagreb’s Art Academy, and later to Paris. Šumanović’s work clearly
indicates several developmental phases which were always related to his place of
residence. Namely, the titles he gave to works from different painting phases were
in accordance with the names of places he resided (Прoтић, 1985: 15-16).
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Vesna Burojević
The paper will attempt to present Sava Šumanović’s opus by reflecting on
important periods and the explicit influence of André Lhote’s method and theory.
The First Zagreb Period. Beginnings. Between the Old and the New
(1914-1920)
Sava Šumanović reconciled two very different sensibilities in his early youth.
Namely, even though his family was considered forward-thinking, Šumanović
was brought up in a conservative environment: to respect his parents and tradition. Nevertheless, he also nurtured a revolutionary streak as an artist and according to a fellow colleague he was extremely open to new ideas in art (Mиљкoвић,
2007: 95). Sava Šumanović enrolled in the Art Academy in Zagreb in 1914, where
he focused his art studies on the old masters such as Dürer, Michelangelo, Rubens
and Rembrandt. His approach was based on using reproductions in his learning
process, i.e. studying the works of the great masters and drawing over them for the
purpose of determining ratios and orders in their paintings (Bašičević, 1997:210215).1 His main focus at the time were Zagreb’s landscapes and mythological
themes and he often participated in the Academy’s exhibitions. In 1918, after
completing his courses, he organized his first solo exhibition in Zagreb and sent
certain works to group exhibitions.
The First Parisian Period (1920-1921)
In September 1920, Šumanović arrived in Paris and rented a studio in Montparnasse. This marked the beginning of a new chapter in both his life and the history
of Serbian painting. Sava Šumanović was the first painter from the Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, who enrolled, in 1921, in a course with respected
art pedagogue and artist André Lhote (Стевановић, 1957: 4, Ambrozić, 1974:
1
126
Antonija Koščević, a friend of Sava Šumanović from his student days, published a study in
1960 titled “A Ballad to a Deceased Schoolfriend” where she wrote about her memories on their
friendship. See: Sava Šumanović, Dimitrije Bašičević, 1997: 210-215
Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with André Lhote
19; Mиљкoвић, 2007: 33). During his first time in Paris, Šumanović spent three
months studying with Lhote (Šumanović 1939: 10; Bašičević 1997: 18-19), absorbing and applying the approaches of his teacher regarding the way a painting
is created and constructed, thus grasping the importance of geometry. In general,
Lhote’s analytical approach agreed with Šumanović’s sensibility and this led to his
return to Zagreb (in 1921) with new paintings and a fresh attitude.2
The Second Zagreb Period. Neoclassicism (1921-1925)
Upon his return to Zagreb, Šumanović organized an exhibition in October 1921.
However, Zagreb’s art critics and public were not appreciative of new trends,
tendencies and changes evidenced in his paintings at that time.
Sava Šumanović spent the next four years in Zagreb. During this time, he
wrote theoretical texts such as “The Painter about Painting” and “Why I love
Poussin’s Painting” where he references André Lhote in the following way:
“The work consists of the complete juxtaposition of the subjective and objective moment. Between Picasso and Derain, André Lhote occupies a special position. Like no other modern painter before him, he analysed the laws of painting
present in the works of Renaissance masters; this highly intelligent and agile spirit
felt the need to find the scientific basis for his style. He cleansed the ‘language of
the painting’ of all elements that were not contemporary (effective) and discernible. Feeling that a painting was an architectural work (this he was convinced of
through scrutinising Signorelli) he studied plastic valeur and the ornamental (flat)
structure of the painting. Knowing that a painting is a flat surface upon which the
painter, by the force of creative will creates an organised plastic world (not an
optical illusion, which is perspective), he discovered that the painter can create the
rhythm of the old masters, without imitating them. He uses as surface (the already
described ‘renaissance frame’) and to this consistent geometrical basis he adds his
analysis. By doing so he affords his painting with his own most subjective feelings, an unalterable appearance and eternal rhythm. He does not scrutinise nature
2
Šumanović’s most important paintings from this period are: The Sculptor in the Atelier,
Composition with Clock and Fishermen on the Seine.
127
Vesna Burojević
with reason (he starts before nature just like Ingres, although, according to him
nature is not the best advisor), rather he gives himself to feeling, thus recognising dimensions and sizes, movement and atmosphere directly, transferring it a
posteriori to his ‘painting language’ coldly and rationally. This is why his works
carry the freshness of first impression and inspiration, which are, again, elevated
to a higher and eternal human level”3 (Šumanović 1924a: 20-24). Gradually, by
introducing more light and colour to his paintings, he started developing a new
style. In his work at that time, the construction of form was less visible, but more
sensitized. He was in search of harmony and equilibrium, essential to any work of
art (Šumanović, 1924a; Миљковић, 2007:36-38).
At the time, he was living in Zagreb, sending his paintings to exhibitions in
Paris, Rijeka, Osijek and Belgrade on a regular basis. His painting “Still Life” –
was bought in Paris for the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (Holland). (Fig. 1)
Second Parisian Period. Expression with Colour and Gesture
(1925-1928)
Šumanović’s second Parisian period lasted from 1925 to 1928, a truly contradictory time for the artist. Šumanović referred to that period as a difficult time
because, unlike other artists, he was only able to obtain a limited six-month visa
from the French government, with the temporary prohibition to sell paintings.
Šumanović was deeply humiliated by being treated in such a way, especially after
all the years he had worked (Шумановић 1939: 12-13).4 Nevertheless, at that
time he created some of his most important paintings. Again, Šumanović rented a
studio in Montparnasse and enrolled in Lhote’s Academy. He never forgot Lhote’s
overwhelming support and kept correspondence with him.5 In 1926 the French
government bought two of Šumanović’s nudes for museums in Honfleur and La
3
4
5
128
If not indicated otherwise all translations into English are by Ivan Epštajn, the translator of the
original article written in the Serbian language by V. Burojević.
Sava Šumanović wrote an autobiographical text as foreword to his last exhibition, which was
also his sixth solo exhibition.
Letter from 1924, from the Archive of A. Lhote.
Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with André Lhote
Fig. 1: Šumanović, Sava, “Bagpiper,”, 1924. Oil on canvas,
115 x 180 cm. The Gallery of
Matica srpska, Novi Sad.
Rochelle.6 French art critics, such as Jacques Guenne, Florent Fels, Georg Turpin
and Rene Jean, reviewed his work and his paintings were reproduced in magazines such as L’ Art Vivant.7 The painting “Drunken Boat” was reproduced on the
cover of the Le Crapouillot magazine’s February issue in 1928.
6
7
I.e. Musées d’Art et d’Histoire de La Rochelle, Musée Eugene Boudin de Honfleur.
This data is mentioned in all Sava Šumanović monographs. All of the magazines are safeguarded
in the “Sava Šumanović” Gallery in Šid. Including reviews and reproductions of Šumanović’s
paintings (predominantly from 1926/27 and 1928. For example: F. Felz, Le Salon des
Indépendants, L’art Vivant, Paris, 1927; J. Guenne, Salon D’Automne, L’art Vivant, Paris, 1926;
R. Jean, Salon des Independents “Comedia”, 10.2.1927, etc.
129
Vesna Burojević
Šumanović also actively participated in Montparnasse art life. From his letters to his parents we learn that at the end of 1927 he participated in the interior
decoration of the famous restaurant La Coupole. The four female figures on the
column of the La Coupole are all that remains of Šumanović’s work in Paris.
During this period, all of his paintings were signed using the French transcription on his name: S. Choumanovitch.
Fig. 2: Šumanović, Sava,
“Breakfast on the Grass,”
1927, Oil on canvas,
201 x 163 cm. The Pavle
Beljanski Memorial Collection, Novi Sad.
Fig. 3: Šumanović, Sava,
“Drunken Boat,” 1927,
Oil on canvas, 250 x
190 cm. The Museum of
Contemporary Art Belgrade.
130
Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with André Lhote
The Third Parisian Period (1928-1930)
A successful exhibition in Belgrade in September 1928 enabled Šumanović to
head to Paris yet again. This time he socialized with many of the painters living
around Montparnasse and this consequently led him to his maturation. This is
when he went back to signing his name in Serbian Cyrillic letters.
Among his works created at the time is “Luxembourg Park,” which is considered to be an outstanding example of Šumanović’s poetic realism. A number of his
painted nudes reference his connection to well-known models of the time.8
Fig. 4: Šumanović, Sava. “Parisian
Model – Kiki,” 1929, Oil on canvas,
60 x 81 cm. The Sava Šumanović Art
Gallery in Šid.
8
Alice Ernestine Prin, also known as “Kiki de Montparnasse” and “The Queen of Montparnasse,”
was a very famous and important woman in Paris, between the two world wars. She was a singer,
actress, painter, and model to many artists, Man Ray’s muse and life partner. At the height of her
fame in 1929 she wrote an autobiography to which Ernest Hemingway wrote an introduction.
131
Vesna Burojević
Fig. 5: Šumanović, Sava.
“Luxembourg Park,” 1929,
Oil on canvas, 64 x 60 cm.
The Sava Šumanović Art
Gallery in Šid.
Šid Period. The Last Decade (1932-1942) “How I Know And Effect”
The last ten-year period of Šumanović’s career is linked to the town of Šid.9 During this last period he walked through the fields and made sketches while painting
in the studio, working on several paintings simultaneously and mixing his own
colours. Colour and light dominate this whole decade and the relationship between colour and light is the subject of all his research (Трифуновић, 1973). The
extremely rough surface, which was a trait of his first works created in Šid, gradually changed, becoming smooth and shiny. Although landscapes are dominant in
this phase, he continued to paint nudes. For the first five years in Šid, he did not
have a model for his nudes, so he painted according to the sketches he brought
with him from Paris. Sava Šumanović explained: “the black-haired women are
from Paris; the blond model is Ema” (Шумaнoвић, 1939: 19) – the only woman
in Šid, who posed for him in 1935. Thanks to Ema he completed the monumental
series “Bathers.”
The 1939 exhibition in Belgrade was one of the most important events in his
career. Four hundred and ten paintings were shown, all of which were created dur9
132
In March 1930 he left Paris, returning home to Šid to convalesce and remained there to the last
of his days.
Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with André Lhote
ing this last period. However, on the day of the exhibition opening, on September
3rd, World War II broke out.
Even though Šid was occupied, Šumanović did not stop working. The day he
was killed, early in the morning of August 28th, 1942, on his easel was his last
painting – the “Pickers Triptych.”
Fig. 6: Šumanović, Sava,
“Evening by the Water,”
1936/38, Oil on canvas,
249 x 189 cm. The Sava
Šumanović Art Gallery in
Šid.
Šumanović and Lhote: Conclusion
Sava Šumanović arrived in Paris to find a resolution to his thoughts and doubts, to
see what he could gain from Paris and to check his options and possibilities. Of all
the many art schools and movements in Paris during the 1920s, Sava Šumanović
chose André Lhote’s Studio. Šumanović was in agreement with his teacher’s attitude regarding the importance of cultural heritage for the making of a work of
art. This is pronounced in Šumanović’s paintings, as well as his theoretical works
through which he explained his approach to art and his intentions as an artist.
Šumanović referred to his teacher as an artist (Šumanović, 1924a).
Lhote’s theories are discernible in Šumanović’s figurative paintings. At first,
the geometric form is dominant, but Šumanović gradually softens it. When venturing into landscape, that is, the landscapes surrounding the town of Šid, he allows himself to create in his own style, which he defines as “how I know and
133
Vesna Burojević
effect style,” through which he is able to finally achieve the synthesis of landscape
and figures.
References
Bašičević, Dimitrije. ed. 1997. Sava Šumanović; 2nd extended edition. Novi Sad: Prometej
Božić, Ivana. 2014. Sava Šumanović, „Natura morte, les feuille libre“ u Kroler-Miler
Muzej, Oterlo, Holandija. In: Rad Muzeja Vojvodine br.56. str.181-190
Буројевић, Весна. 2011. Последња деценија Саве Шумановића, Шид: Галерија слика
„Сава Шумановић“ [Burojević, Vesna. Poslednja decenija Save Šumanovića/ The
Last Decade of Sava Šumanović]
Martin-Mary, Gilberte; Ambrozić, Katarina. 1974. Andre Lot i njegovi jugoslovenski
učenici/André Lhote et ses eleves yougoslaves. Beograd: Narodni muzej [André Lhote
and his Yugoslav Students]
Мереник, Лидија. 2016. Сава Шумановић Шидијанке – велика синтеза и откровење
нове стварности. Шид: Галерија слика „Сава Шумановић“ [Merenik, Lidija. Sava
Šumanović – Velika sinteza i otkrovenje nove stvarnosti/Sava Šumanović – The Great
Synthesis and Discovery of a New Reality]
Миљковић, Љубица, 2007. Сава Шумановић – Препуштање пасији. Шид: Галерија
слика „Сава Шумановић“ [Miljković,Ljubica. Sava Šumanović – Prepuštanje pasiji/
Sava Šumanović –Surrendering to Passion]
Протић, Б. Миодраг. 1985. Сава Шумановић. Шид: Галерија слика „Сава Шумановић“
[Protić, B. Miodrag. Sava Šumanović]
Стевановић, Момчило. 1957. Сава Шумановић. Београд: Просвета стр.76 [Stevanović,
Momčilo. Sava Šumanović]
Шумaнoвић, Сaвa. 1939. „Meстo прeдгoвoрa,“ Кaтaлoг излoжбe Сaвe Шумaнoвићa.
Бeoгрaд: Нoви унивeрзитeт. In: Протић Б.Миодраг. 1996. Сaвa Шумaнoвић 18961942. Излoжбa пoвoдoм стoгoдишњицe рoђeњa. Бeoгрaд: Mузej сaврeмeнe
умeтнoсти Бeoгрaд [“Instead of a Foreword,” in: Protić, B. Miodrag. 1996. Sava
Šumanović 1896-1942. Exhibition on the Centenary of the Artists’ Birth]
Шумaнoвић, Сaвa. 1921. Изложба Саве Шумановића, Уметнички павиљон, Загреб,
новембар 1921. In: Протић Б.Миодраг. 1996. Сaвa Шумaнoвић 1896-1942.
Излoжбa пoвoдoм стoгoдишњицe рoђeњa. Бeoгрaд: Mузej сaврeмeнe умeтнoсти
134
Sava Šumanović – Life, Work and Ties with André Lhote
Бeoгрaд [Izložba Save Šumanovića, Umetnički pavilјon, Zagreb, novembar 1921/
The Exhibition of Sava Šumanović. Art Pavilion, Zagreb, November 1921; In: Sava
Šumanović 1896-1942. Centenary of the Artists’ Birth]
Šumanović, Sava.1924a. „Slikar o slikarstvu.“ In: Šimić, A. B. (ed.). Književnik, maj
1924, br.1. str. 20-24. Zagreb [“The Painter on Painting”]
Šumanović, Sava.1924b. „Zašto volim Pusenovo slikarstvo.“ In: Šimić, A. B. (ed.).
Književnik, jun 1924, br. 2. str. 57-59. Zagreb [“Why I Love Poussin’s Painting”]
Трифуновић, Лазар. 1973. Српско сликарство 1900-1950, Бeoгрaд: Нолит [Trifunović,
Lazar. Srpsko slikarstvo 1900-1950/Serbian Painting 1900-1950]
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Šumanović, Sava, Bagpiper, 1924. Oil on canvas, 115 x 180 cm, The Gallery of
Matica srpska, Novi Sad.
Fig. 2: Šumanović, Sava, Breakfast on the Grass, 1927, Oil on canvas, 201 x 163 cm, The
Pavle Beljanski Memorial Collection, Novi Sad.
Fig. 3: Šumanović, Sava, Drunken Boat, 1927, Oil on canvas, 250 x 190 cm, Museum of
Contemporary Art Beograd.
Fig. 4: Šumanović, Sava , Parisian Model – Kiki, 1929, Oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm, The
“Sava Šumanović” Art Gallery in Šid.
Fig. 5: Šumanović, Sava, Luxembourg Park, 1929, Oil on canvas,64 x 60 cm, The “Sava
Šumanović” Art Gallery in Šid.
Fig. 6: Šumanović, Sava, Evening by the Water, 1936/38, Oil on canvas, 249 x 189 cm,
The “Sava Šumanović” Art Gallery in Šid.
135
An Overview of the Turkish Students of
André Lhote
Zeynep Kuban
ABSTRACT
In the history of Turkish painting of the 20th century André Lhote has been
known as the teacher of many Turkish painters. His name appears in their
biographies; the similarities of style have often been discussed. The Académie
Lhote was frequented by many Turkish students from the second half of the
1920s to the middle of the 1950s. In Turkish history, this was the period of
modernization when arts were directly promoted by the state. So far we have
found the names of 32 Turkish students of Lhote, some of them famous in
Turkey, some less known, and some almost completely unknown. Most of the
names could not be found in the archive of André Lhote, as there are no complete enrollment lists. This article will present an overview of Lhoteʼs Turkish
studentsʼ work, their careers and influences on the Turkish art scene as professors in the Academy of Fine Arts, as teachers in high schools, as museum
directors and civil servants in the cultural departments of the government.
Introduction
Generations of artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries paved the path for the
young artists of the new Turkish Republic founded in 1923, only two years prior
to the establishment of André Lhoteʼs academy. To get an overall picture of the
circumstances of fine arts during the early years of the Turkish Republic, in which
the Turkish Lhote students were embedded, we will first take a short look into
the past. The Republic was a new formation, but the previous social and political
conditions played a role in shaping the next generations.
137
Zeynep Kuban
Although representational art was known in the Ottoman Empire, paintings created on an easel and pictures on display were practically absent in public life until
the 19th century. The circulation of paintings as art objects, their economic impact, and painting as a profession were not familiar concepts in the Ottoman Empire due to the political and social organisation. The lack of a broad aristocracy in
the Ottoman system, lack of noblemen as commissioners and patrons, the absence
of art museums and private art collections prevented the development of visual
and figurative arts for the public, and as a result fine arts remained mainly limited
to service of the Sultan and his inner circle of the court. The political, economic
and social reforms in 1839 and 1856 which were oriented towards Europe, made
significant changes in this respect, but progress was slow.
State Involvement in Arts Education
Institutions
Until the establishment of the first Academy of Fine Arts in 1882, there were no
official institutions or any significant private school of fine arts1. The Academy of
Fine Arts (Sanayi Nefise Mektebi-Ali) was an outcome of the reforms during the
Late Empire period when the Imperial Museum of Archaeology was also established. The son of the Prime Minister, Osman Hamdi Bey, a painter by training in
Paris was appointed as the director of both institutions.2 Through his position in
Art and Archaeology he became the conveyer of the State’s objectives for modernization. After the foundation of the secular Republic of Turkey by Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk in 1923, the government put more emphasis on the significance of
arts education. The enrolment to the Academy was offered to both sexes together.
The establishment of the Istanbul Museum for Painting and Sculpture in 1937 was
a direct imperative from Atatürk himself.3
1
2
3
138
There were only some private studios limited to small groups bearing no impact on the general
population. Sinanlar, Seza, Pera’da Resim Üretim Ortamı 1844-1916, ITU PhD Thesis, 2008.
(The Production of Paintings in Pera)
Eldem, Edhem, Osman Hamdi Bey Sözlüğü, Istanbul 2010 (The Osman Hamdi Bey Dictionary)
Modern art museums can play a role to create a “good image,” even by conservative governments
An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
The State and the Arts
The direct state involvement in artistic development and art education in Turkey
can be assessed in different phases for its intensity starting from the last quarter of
the 19th century until the middle of the 1950s. This is also the end of the period
that students from Turkey attended the Académie Lhote. For a very long time
public demand for the visual arts was too small to nourish a growing independent
art scene because the society’s traditional reservations concerning figural depiction could not be overcome easily. This was the case in the late Ottoman Empire
period and also during the first decades of the 20th century in the early years of the
Republic. It was the state that promoted the Academy and fostered the education
at the same time. As a result, the State remained the only employer of artists in
permanent positions, as teachers in high schools, as professors in the academia
or civil servants in ministries. The state also commissioned paintings for government offices such as ministries and state owned banks. The well-known art producers and the decision-makers in museums and academies were mostly all civil
servants, dependent on the good will of the State. At the same time, they were also
the decision-makers for scholarships, collections and state exhibitions. As long as
the State needed them as enablers of modernisation, it remained a win- win situation for the artists as well. State scholarships, job openings, even art museums
were used as testimony to the presence of a modern state. This situation created
an interesting reciprocal dependency, at least until the 1950s when the political
situation started to change.4
The role of the State in the demand for the representation of a certain topic is
often discussed. One typical example predates the Lhote Students: The government in 1914 employed the artists’ who had to return from Paris due to war, for
painting large canvases glorifying the war, and emphasizing the great courage of
4
in Turkey today, as shown by the opening of the Istanbul Modern Museum (financed by private
funds) ahead of schedule. It was supported by the government to be opened earlier than planned
to make fit into the schedule of some EU talks in Istanbul December 17. 2004. http://arkitera.com/
haber/7760/oya-eczacibasi-anlatti--istanbul-modernin-ilginc-hikayesi-15.01.2005. Last access:
15.09.2018.
For the discussion of how much the state intervened – one of many discussions: Altınoba, Buket,
Die Istanbuler Kunstakademie, Chapter: Loslösung von Staatskunst und künstlerische Diversität
in der Türkei, Berlin 2016, 251ff.
139
Zeynep Kuban
Turkish soldiers. These paintings were subsequently sent to an exhibition in Vienna.5 After 1923 the State organised exhibitions named “State Exhibition” (Devlet
Sergileri), for example for the 10th anniversary of the Republic; the “Exhibitions
of the Revolution” in 1933, and also commissioned paintings that showed the
achievements of the new Turkish Republic. Another State organised program was
the “Yurt Gezileri” (1937-1943) / Journeys in the Country (Üstünipek 1999, 4040). Artists were sent to various places in the rural areas to introduce the new art to
a larger population, and on their return they were expected to use in their paintings
the local motives/themes from the places they visited.6
Paris and after Paris
Going to Paris was not a deliberate choice for Turkish artists. Together with administrative novelties the State fostered education abroad starting already in the
1860s. Most of the young Ottoman students were sent to Paris by the State for
complementary or primary education and some for a military education. Some of
the first Ottoman painters had a military background and formed a pioneer group.
The most famous of them was Şeker Ahmet who like Osman Hamdi Bey and
many other Ottoman students of the pre-Academy generation preferred to study
with Gustave Boulanger.7
A group of the first graduates of the Academy went for complementary education to Paris around 1912 and were mainly students in the Atelier of Fernand
Cormon and had to return upon the outbreak of WWI. This generation was ravished by the rich art scene in Paris and much frustrated after their return only to
find themselves in a much smaller artistic environment limited to the Academy.
They tried to foster a richer artistic environment by establishing an art society and
5
6
7
140
For detailed information on these paintings and the exhibition in Vienna in 1918, see Gören,
Ahmet Kamil, Türk Resim Sanatında Şişli Atölyesi ve Viyana Sanat Sergisi, Istanbul 1997.
The re-organisation and modernisation of the countryside was one of the most tremendous
challenges of the new Republic as more than 80% of the population was living outside of the
cities and in 1935 the percentage of the literacy was only around 20%. www.tuik.gov.tr (Turkish
Statistics Institute)
For detailed information on this painter Özsezgin, Kaya, Şeker Ahmet Paşa, Istanbul 2014.
An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
organising exhibitions. The first example is the Society of Ottoman Painters, they
inaugurated the Galatasaray Exhibitions that continued until 1951.8 Many of the
members of this group became professors at the Academy like Ibrahim Çallı, Hikmet Onat. Ruhi Arel, who were holding the powerful positions when the Lhote
students returned (Artun 2007:276).
The next generation of the Academy graduates went to Paris around 1922/1923.
They were funded privately by their families in the beginning, but later they received scholarships from the state.9 Based on their professors’ recommendations
they mainly attended the Academy Julian, where Father and son Laurens were
teachers (Artun 2007:206). Upon their return they tried to overcome the artistic
isolation by forming a new art group called the “Association of Independent Artists and Sculptors” (Müstakil Ressam ve Heykeltraşlar Birliği). The association
served rather as a union of group support for the arts, and intended to create an
artistic environment similar to what its members had experienced in Paris. They
did not aim towards a common artistic style or taste, but some of the objectives
were opening group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad, and encouraging the state
to acquire their art works (Giray 1997:46-49). Even though they claimed to be
“independent,” in reality they remained quite dependent on the government, by
acquiring teaching positions in the public school system, participating in state
exhibitions and producing works for public institutions.
The Lhote Period
The Andre Lhote period was set against this historical and social background, in
which artists supported by the government were the visual voice of Modernism in
the newly established Turkish Republic. Artists and art interested groups were in
those days a very minor group in this traditional patriarchal society.
8
9
Şerifoğlu, Ö.F: Resim Tarihimizden: Galatasaray Sergileri, 1916-1951, İstanbul 2003.
Some of the students went first to Munich, attended the Academy in Munich and the Hans
Hofmann Art School. Hofmann, like Lhote was an admirer of Cezanne, and had good connections
to the early Cubists in Paris. Zeki Kocamemi and Ali Avni Çelebi have been often seen as a
breakaway group from the Lhote students. (Erol 1987: 181)
141
1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
LHOTE
LÉGER
MUSEUM DIRECTOR/MINISTRY EMPLOYEE
JULIAN/LAURENS
PROFESSOR -ACADEMY/I.T.U
FREE LANCE/UNKNOWN
BEAUX-ARTS
SCHOOL TEACHER
Fig. 1: The Tentative List of Lhote’s Turkish Students (Zeynep Kuban)
Zeynep Kuban
142
HALE ASAF
HALİL DİKMEN
E. HAKKI KÖSEOĞLU
HAMİT GÖRELE
ZEKİ FAİK İZER
CEMAL TOLLU
EŞREF ÜREN
EREN EYÜBOĞLU
ABİDİN ELDEROĞLU
KEMAL ZEREN
SALİH URALLI
B. RAHMİ EYÜBOĞLU
FÜRUMET TEKTAŞ
NURULLAH BERK
ERCÜMENT KALMIK
HASAN KAVRUK
SABRİ BERKEL
ARİF KAPTAN
REFİK EREN
SADİ ÖZİŞ
NEDİM GÜNSÜR
NEŞET GÜNAL
CEMAL BİNGÖL
HAŞMET AKAL
ŞEMSİ AREL
MAİDE AREL
TOSUN BAYRAK
LEYLA GAMSIZ
EROL AKYAVAŞ
BECKY MOLHO
ADNAN ÇOKER
ELİ YAĞCIOĞLU
An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
André Lhote’s influence on his students was multifaceted. Adapting his style,
especially in the years at his studio, is the most evident. Not only as a painter, but
also as a writer and teacher, he was influential as he became a role model for his
students. Since many of his students from the period prior to WWII worked as
teachers at high schools and universities his influence as a role model was transmitted to the next generations.
I will concentrate on the artists who were active in academia, in education and
in public service, and had a potential of real impact on next generations.
The first Turkish students attended the Académie Lhote from 1927 onwards.
Hale Asaf was probably one of the first (Pelvanoğlu 2007:126).10 Some of them
had been students earlier at the Académie Julian before (Nurullah Berk-Halit Dikmen, Hamit Görele, Kemal Zeren) (Artun 2007:270). The last students of the first
group of around thirteen students (Fig. 1) left Paris in 1933. Ercüment Kalmık
and Eşref Üren were studying with Lhote shortly before the outbreak of WWII
towards the end of the 1930s.
Lhote as a teacher also showed his influence on the professors in the Academy
of Fine Arts during the postwar years from 1947 to 1956/7.
The table in Fig. 1 shows that Turkish students also frequented the Atelier of
Fernand Léger. There were less students at the Atelier before than after the World
War II.
The low number of female students is striking, but understandable in the context of the traditional and conservative society. There were only six women out
of 32 students. Hale Asaf, who had great potential as a painter, died very early in
1938, so that we never will have a chance to find out how she would have developed further as an artist. Dorrit Black from Australia notes in the summer of 1928,
two Turkish women among the students in Mirmande without mentioning their
names. (Lock 2014:176) Unfortunately, we do not know who they were; Hale
Asaf could have been one of them, but neither in her biography nor in her paint10 Hale Asaf was a Lhote student, probably from 1927 onwards. In her biography there is some
ambiguous information, that she was at the Académie Grande Chaumiere with Lhote in 1927.
But from Lhote’s biography it is clear that from 1925 onward he had his own Académie. The
link between Lhote and the Académie Grande Chaumiere is still not clear, because in the Lhote
biography (see Dominique Berman Marin in this volume) the Académie Grande Chaumiere is
not present.
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Zeynep Kuban
ings do we see the traces of Mirmande. Another female student of the early period
was Fürumet Tektaş, the daughter of a diplomat, but she was there in the thirties.
After World War II four other women attended the Lhote Atelier. In the Lhote
archive are postcards sent by Becky Molho in 1949 and 1955. In 1955 she wrote
that her scholarship was stopped and she could not come back to study anymore.
From the correspondence, we know that she had been at the summer school in
Gordes. She probably never advanced as a painter. Maide Arel is also a known,
but not very famous artist. She attended the Lhote school together with her husband Şemsi Arel in the end of the 1940’s. After the Academy she continued to
paint without working at any institution. Leyla Gamsız was another female student who became a well-known freelance artist. Eli Yağcıoğlu, became a teacher,
attended the Académie Lhote after the war but it is not yet clear exactly when.
The lists here could not be verified by the Lhote Archive as the complete enrollment lists do not exist. The present list is based on the archive, personal accounts, respective biographies of the artists, and other compiled sources on Turkish artists. Nevertheless, there are some contradictory information in the sources
we used, therefore the list presented here is tentative.
Academy Professors
After returning from Paris some of the Lhote students found positions at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul: Edip Hakkı Köseoğlu (1933), Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu,
Zeki Faik İzer and Cemal Tollu became the assistants of Leopold Levy in 1937.
Sabri Berkel and Nurullah Berk became assistants at the Academy in 1939. Among
the postwar Lhote students only Neşet Günal11 and Adnan Çoker came back to the
Academy’s Art Department. Sadi Öziş became one of the founders of the Department of Stage and Costume Design. Refik Eren received a scholarship in Stage
Decoration, and worked later at the State’s Opera and Ballet Theater.
Evidently, the most influential Lhote student was Nurullah Berk, who became
a well-known writer, painter and teacher. Nurullah Cemal Berk lived in Paris on
various occasions without a scholarship, attended the Académie Julian, Académie
11 The education at the Fernand Léger atelier influenced Neşet Günal more than Lhote.
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des Beaux Arts, the Académie Lhote and the atelier of Fernand Léger. In his writings, he refers especially to his second visit in 1947 when he really understood
Lhote (Berk 1971:59). He became professor at the Academy, later also director of
the Museum of Painting and Sculpture and was one of the most influential persons
in the art scene until the 1960s.
In his paintings he used traditional motifs, for example, a woman with a veil, a
Turkish carpet and textiles or a hookah smoker. The way of expression clearly reminds of Lhote’s directions on composition, deformation and geometric volumes.
Lhote’s training blended the essences of classical tradition from all kinds of
cultural contexts, like Persian Miniatures (Berk 1971: 60), Chinese Painting or the
Classics in the Louvre, with techniques “based on Cubism” (Greet 2018, 52).12
The description of Emlen Etting for Lhote who “matured from Cubism to a new
form of classicism” (Emling-Pacini 1988: 27) is also relevant for Berk, who developed his own classical easy recognisable style. For students from countries
with a strong folkloristic heritage Lhote’s artistic approach worked well.
One painting among all of Berk’s works stands out for its size and technique.
It is a wall painting directly commissioned by the Technical University of Istanbul
in 1954 (Fig. 2). The large size mural (5m x 12m) depicts individually the subjects
of study at the relatively young school such as Mining, Engineering, and Architecture. We see railways, chimneys and young civil and mechanical engineers that
plan and work towards progress in the young Turkish Republic. The names signed
on the painting are Nurullah Berk, Abdurrahman Öztoprak, Yaşar Yeniceli and
Oktay Dikmen. Berk was the professor, Öztoprak his senior student and a recent
graduate, and the other two, young students from the studio at the Academy. Berk
never painted murals, and so they waited until Öztoprak returned from Italy, where
he learned the fresco technique. Most probably Berk prepared the design, and
Öztoprak completed the mural. In Öztoprak’s portfolio figurative painting hardly
exists, only very little during his time in Berk’s Studio (Ödekan 2014: 109). The
volumes of the figures in the mural resemble Berk’s other paintings, and the composition overall reminds us strongly of Lhote’s monumental paintings, such as
L’huile et ses derives, 1937 for the Palais de la Découverte. (Dufieux 2003: 80-93).
12 The observations of some Latin American artists, noted by Greet, were exactly valable for the
Turkish context.
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Zeynep Kuban
Fig. 2: The Mural at Istanbul Technical University executed by Nurullah Berk,
Abdurrahman Öztoprak, Yaşar Yeniceli, Oktay Dikmen, Fresco Technique 5m x 12m
© ITU/Photograph by Korkut İlhan.
Like Lhote, Berk was a very productive writer. He wrote eighteen books and
hundreds of articles. Many of the first generation Lhote students wrote articles in
journals; exhibition critiques, painting reviews, but none of them was comparable
to Berk. In many of his articles we can see traces of Lhote’s education, describing
the importance of composition before the colour. Very often he praises him directly, saying that, “Lhote took Cubism out of the abstract and gave it a new form
with the rules of nature”13 (Genim 2007: 74) or “Lhote didn’t use Cubism as a finalité, but a philosophy” (Genim 2007: 72). In the book “Ustalarla Konuşmalar”
“Talks with Masters” from 1971, he commented on Picasso, Leger, Gromaire,
Rouault, de Chirico, Lardera, Francastel and Belling, and one chapter is dedicated
to Lhote. The chapter has two parts, first a biographic survey of Lhote, and then
the personal memories of Berk. He talks about himself and Lhote; the atelier,
Poliakoff and the atmosphere. (Berk 1971, 47-64) With books on Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and the Bellinis he produced substantial work on Renaissance artists
in Turkish at a time when there were hardly any books on the subject in Turkish.
The great influence of Lhote on Berk’s writings is also visible in his book “Resim
13 If not otherwise noted are all translations provided by the author.
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An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
Bilgisi” that could be perhaps translated as “Education of Painting.” It has two
parts, the first consists of the basic principles like “Dessin”design, “geometry”
and “colour.” The second part is a compilation of history of art and styles in Europe and then the history of art in Turkey. Interestingly, his historical account of
Turkish art history leads to a glorification of his own deeds in the Group d (see
below) as he describes them as THE group that reformed the understanding of
painting in Turkey.
The artist as a writer model became a predominant issue during this period.
Many artists of the Academy believed that it was the artist’s duty to write about
art. Adnan Çoker, the last Lhote student, defended this view relatively late in his
life 2001-(Gezgin, 2002,181).14 In fact the education of art history as a discipline
did not exist in Turkey until 1943,15 so the lack of professionals in art criticism in
those days is also the reason for the writings of Berk that were almost uncritically
accepted as a basis for art history in Turkey. This very small group of artists producing art, and also acting as art critics, created a lot of tension among the artists
themselves. Those who were also professors at the academy, and wrote reviews
like Nurullah Berk, Cemal Tollu or Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu created a superior
image for themselves, as they were in a privileged position; they controlled the
production and they also commented on and defined the taste. When comparing these with articles from artists outside the Academy, it becomes obvious that
much content of art criticism was based on personal relations, animosities and
friendships (Cuda, 1973).
In 1937 Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu became the assistant of Leopold Levy at the
Academy to translate for the French professor. He came from a family where the
ideas of tradition, heritage and modernity were bonded together. He owes much to
his elder brother, the intellectual and financial mentor, Sabahattin Eyüboğlu who
shared his scholarship in Paris with his younger brother. Sabahattin Eyüboğlu was
a writer, art critic and filmmaker, and the founder of one of the leading intellectual
groups that explored the cultural roots of Turkey apart from Islam, and coined the
term “Anatolianness” for art and culture. This concept was essential in the work
14 Students of Çoker still felt the influence of Lhote in the 1970’s, Interview with Oğuz Haşlakoğlu,
2018.
15 And even then the education in Art History after this date didn’t foster the education of art critics
on contemporary art.
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Zeynep Kuban
of Bedri Rahmi, who, in his entire life sought to combine modern techniques with
traditional motifs and traditional techniques with modern motifs. Bedri Rahmi
Eyüboğlu also wrote on art, but simpler. In his writings, his poems are better
known. He experimented with different techniques of art: murals and mosaics,
ceramics, textile prints and so on. He took Lhote’s idea of deformation resolutely,
already clear in his 1934 discussion in an article on El Greco and deformations
(Erol 1987: 216 and 265) (Fig 3). Bedri Rahmi married Ernestine Lettoni, a young
Romanian student he met in the Académie Lhote (1928-1932). They moved to
Turkey, and she changed her name to Eren (the Wise). Like her husband traditional/local Turkish motifs also became part of her repertory of painting.
One of the eminent figures in the Academy was Cemal Tollu, a Lhote student
between 1928 and 1931. Through Berk (1971: 54) we learn that he attended the
summer school in Mirmande, but we haven’t found any photographs showing
him there. Throughout his life Tollu remained faithful to the rules of geometry
he learned in Paris. He contributed to the trend of Anatolian traditional/heritage
blended with “modern” by using ancient Hittite reliefs as models,16 as he was
working as the vice-director in the Museum of Archaeology in Ankara, between
1935 and 1937 (Berk 1939: 6).
The artist Zeki Faik İzer,17 is a good example for change. His first formative
years in Paris between 1928 and 1931 reveal the influence of Lhote. İzer joined
the Academy in Istanbul in 1937 also as assistant and translator to Léopold Levy,
and between 1948 and 1953 İzer served as the director of the Academy. His painting style changed to abstract in the 1950s. Lhote’s broad spectrum of teaching
methods seems to have had an impact on İzer. His student, Özdemir Altan remembers:” He attempted to introduce us to the German Renaissance, Far Eastern Art,
Ingres and the Renaissance. I think he was the first one coming with a book to the
studio” (Gezgin 2002: 193).
Sabri Berkel had a different background from all. He was from Skopje-Macedonia, studied in Belgrade and Florence and moved to Turkey in 1937/8. He was
appointed to the atelier of engravings of the Academy in 1939 and visited the
16 This attitude is very similar to Latin American artists who found a local Cubism in their ancient
past reliefs and sculptures.
17 For a detailed biography, see İrepoğlu, Gül, Zeki Faik İzer, Istanbul, 2005.
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An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
Fig. 3: Eyüboğlu, Bedri Rahmi, Mother and Child, Serigraphy 84 x 64 cm, © Istanbul
Museum of Painting and Sculpture.
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Académie Lhote after the war in the late 1940s. For a while he adopted the geometric forms and combined them, like Berk, with local /traditional motifs. Maybe
through his experience in the engraving atelier, and a change of taste with time,
he moved to a more graphic and abstract way of painting. In the 1970s Berkel was
also director of the Museum of Painting and Sculpture (Fig. 4).
We should also mention Ercüment Kalmık’s name among the former Lhote
students. He spent two years at the Academie Lhote shortly before the outbreak
of WWII. He never worked at the Academy, but at the School of Architecture of
Istanbul Technical University, where the large fresco of Nurullah Berk and Abdurrahman Öztoprak is situated. From 1949 until his death in 1971 Kalmık taught
free hand drawing, composition, geometry and perspective for architects. He
wrote two books for educational purposes, “Texture in Nature and Art” and “Harmony Systems of Colours.” His interest in the writings of Lhote is evident in his
note-books, where he had taken notes from Lhote’s “Traité du Paysage” and for
the library he ordered Lhote’s “Traité de la Figure” so the students could read it.
Teachers, Bureaucrats, Freelance Artists
Even though it was clear from the beginning that most of the scholarship recipients were trained to become art teachers at high schools, everybody at the
Academy dreamed of becoming an artist. Hamit Görele, who attended the Académie Lhote between 1929 and 1932 is one of them. In personal short accounts
his resentment at being denied a position at the Academy is clear. He was a high
school teacher until his retirement, and was unhappy to have lived in the underdeveloped, colourless countryside in the late 1930s: Colour and Paint “I am a
teacher in the highlands of Anatolia…. I am not a person hard to please, and I
am not asking to be surrounded by museums, exhibitions, concerts, theatres and
zoos. But is it too much for an art teacher to long for a bit of colour, a green slope,
two trees, a little creek or a small lake?;” 19 March 1938.18 Despite these words
Görele went on painting, contributing to exhibitions and group activities as much
as possible.
18 http://www.hamitgorele.com/haberleri, last accessed 20.10.2018).
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Fig. 4: Berkel, Sabri, The Yoghurt Vender. Oil on canvas, 162,5 x 130 cm, © Istanbul
Museum of Painting and Sculpture.
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Many well-known writers, musicians and artists were making their living on
education in high schools in the 1930s and 1940s. The table (Fig. 1) shows that
the number of teachers was higher in the pre-war generation, while after the war
many became freelance artists.
A subject that has not been discussed much is the role of these teachers. For
example Eşref Üren was the teacher of Leyla Gamsız and Cemal Bingöl who also
became a teacher. Kemal Zeren was the teacher of Neşet Günal. Bedri Rahmi
Eyüboğlu was deeply influenced by his high school art teacher Zeki Kocamemi
who had been a Hofmann student. (see Footnote 9) Şemsi Arel, the son of academy professor Ruhi Arel worked mainly as a teacher.19 Eli Yağcıoğlu, whose name
only appeared in a small note of a compilation worked in Istanbul in a French high
school as an art teacher.20
Hasan Kavruk studied in Ankara at a school that trained art teachers. He became a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education, where he organized exhibitions,
oversaw the applications of scholarships and was in this way effective.
Arif Kaptan, Leyla Gamsız, Erol Akyavaş were free lance painters, while
Haşmet Akal shifted between free-lance and teaching. He died young in 1960.
Tosun Bayrak became an activist artist with quite an eccentric vita.21
Lhote and the Academy in Istanbul
Nurullah Berk wrote in his book-chapter on Lhote the following dialogue: “(…)
Ahhh the Turks, you know, they have been some of my most precious students. I am
angry at your government. I educated so many young artists of your country, but
I never got an invitation to teach there. They are calling me now from Egypt, lets
see if I will go(….)”(Berk 1971:62). Two letters from the Lhote Archive tell anoth19 It might be interesting to research about later reflections. Utku Varlık was a student of Berkel and
Eyüboğlu in 1960/61 and in Paris he went to George Dayez, a professor of lithography, who was
a Lhote student. http://utkuvarlik.blogspot.com/last accessed 25.09.2018. Similar Fethi Arda,
first a Berkel student learned in Paris in the atelier of Henri Goetz in 1967, who also was a Lhote
student.
20 Saris, Maida, İstanbullu Rum Ressamlar, İstanbul, 2010, 346. (Greek Artists of Istanbul) There
was no indication to the date of study of Yağcıoğlu with Lhote.
21 Antmen, Ahu, Fasa Fiso- Tosun Bayrak, Milli Reasürans Galerisi, İstanbul 2016
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An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
er story (Figs. 5-6). In 1936 the Academy urged educational reforms and invited
foreign specialists in the fields of painting, sculpture and architecture. Burhan
Toprak, the director of the academy in those days, was the driving force behind it.
The German Artist Rudolf Belling was invited to the Sculpture department, Hans
Pölzig to the Architecture department, but Pölzig died before his arrival, and was
replaced by Bruno Taut. In the official story of the Academy, Leopold Levy had
been invited for the painting department. In the archive of André Lhote in Paris
is a handwritten letter to Lhote by Hamit Görele dated 1.7.1936. The text is a
clear invitation to André Lhote to come and reform the Painting department of the
Academy. Statements like the quote of salary in the beginning of the letter, and
the following sentences: “(….)Il y a 20 ans que les élèves de Cormon sont encore
là professeurs” (…..) “L’Orient un nouvel monde et horizon(….)” are interesting
to read. Görele probably guessed that Lhote might not be interested in a long term
stay, and asked in the final line if André Derain would be an option, in case that
Lhote couldn’t come. “Si vous n’acceptez pas cette mission, ayez la bonté de nous
recommander Dérain.... Mes hommages, Hamit” and a note on top ”Un de vos
élèves que vous m’appeliez jeune turc.” It is not clear why Görele who didn’t have
any official affiliation to the Academy wrote this letter, that also has no official
tone. It is unknown whether the academy also wrote another official letter. The director entered the scene in another letter; officially with address, typed and signed
by the director Burhan Toprak and addressed to Lhote, the “Cher Maitre.” The
content is the answer to a lost letter from Lhote. It reveals that Lhote had rejected
a long stay, but had offered to come for three months instead. This never materialized. But evidently it was through Lhote and then Derain that finally Levy got
the position at the Academy as a professor. We will never know whether Berk had
invented the conversation in his book or Lhote had completely forgotten about the
issue of the invitation.22
The Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture opened in 1937. The museum
was attached administratively to the Academy of Fine Arts, so professors at the
Academy who became directors and decision makers in the first decades were
Lhote Students: Halil Dikmen the first director from 1937-1961, then Nurullah
22 Duygu Demir found them in the Lhote Archive in Le Raincy and I thank her for allowing me to
use her photos.
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Zeynep Kuban
Fig. 5: Handwritten letter by Hamit Görele © Archives André Lhote/photo Duygu Demir
© ADAGP.
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An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
Fig. 6: Typewritten letter by Burhan Toprak © Archives André Lhote/photo Duygu Demir
© ADAGP.
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Zeynep Kuban
Berk from 1962-1969. Another Lhote student, Sabri Berkel, became director in
1977. The committee for the selection of the first exhibition ever in the museum
consisted of Léopold Levy and Halil Dikmen as the chairmen; two other Lhote
students Cemal Tollu and Zeki Faik İzer and the two other members a poet and
a musician (Bingöl 2011: 51). It was no wonder that right from the start, the
museum exhibited a large number of paintings from the generation of the Lhote
students.
Like the earlier generations had done before, the Lhote students returning from
Paris also founded a group in 1933, called “d grubu” (Group d). With the enthusiasm from Paris, and the accumulated knowledge from Lhote’s training in composition, classics and modern art, they opened their first exhibition in a hat shop in
Istanbul. They attempted to separate themselves from the old school, the Cormon
students. Newspapers published articles on their exhibitions with headlines like:
“The old painters should just gossip” “This year there will be no draperies.”23
Nurullah Berk was the force behind d grubu (Group d); he kept the group together, and organized exhibits until 1951 (Yasa Yaman-Ergüven 2004). The elder
generation professors blamed the group for losing their ties to academic painting
and reality. The Group d explained, in line with Lhote, that their perception of
classicism was not the execution of mimetic details, but the basic geometry, innate to everything (Yasa Yaman-Ergüven 2006:30). The Group d also introduced
another Lhote expression to the art scene in Turkey: Art Vivant- Living Art, the
Turkish translation of Yaşayan Sanat became the title of a journal they published
(Yasa Yaman-Ergüven 2006: 30).
23 The journal Akşam published positive comments on the group written by themselves or their
journalist friends. There were also negative comments about them and their teacher André Lhote.
Especially one article from 5.8.1933 in Akşam written by Ali Sami (Boyar) is famous: “…Lhote,
Lhote, Lhote, as if Paris had no greater artist than Lhote; every young artist brings us Andre
Lhote. I will tell you now about André Lhote and his new art. I visited all the modern art ateliers,
and met many modernists. Andre Lhote is a man of 40-45 years and he styles his hair every
morning with a curling iron; he never leaves Montparnasse. Please do not ask me about his
artistic value. In fact, these European art ateliers are nothing more than money traps. Especially,
rich American widows come here; they are very fond of supporting young painters… In every
atelier behind a screen or in its dark corners you can hear seductive laughs (……)!”
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An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
Conclusion
The time frame when Turkish students attended the Académie Lhote overlaps
the development period of the young Turkish Republic. Lhote was somehow discovered and approved as an institution by the Turkish authorities for Turkish art
students in Paris. They visited him in a period of 30 years, and as a consequence
Lhote became influential on art education in high schools, in the Academy and
museums, and on the bureaucrats of the Turkish art scene. Probably even the
students of the students might have had a role. Lhote’s mediation of the classical
approach and the modern became in the Turkish context a combination of the
modern medium of painting with local/traditional elements as the classic. The
present book on the internationality of the Académie Lhote revealed that not only
students from Turkey, but also those from more traditional countries reacted similarly in engaging the ʻTraditionalʼ as the classical element, and blended it with
Lhote’s cubic language.
Let me finish with an observation by the pedagogue Ismail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu,
who wrote a book titled “Demokrasi ve Sanat-Democracy and Art” in 1931.
Among many of his claims, one fits perfectly into our situation, that Cubism itself
was an international, not a national issue (Baltacıoğlu 1931:126-127). Maybe he
had something else in mind, but the fact is that the Cubism pouring out of the
Académie Lhote into the whole world was really an Internationalism.
References
Baltacıoğlu, İsmail Hakkı, Demokrasi ve Sanat, Istanbul 1931. (Democracy and Art)
Berk Nurullah, Ustalarla Konuşmalar, Ankara 1971. (Speaking with Masters)
Berk Nurullah, d grubu sergisi, Istanbul 1939. (An exhibition on the d grubu)
Cuda, Mahmut, Kılavuzun Böylesi, Istanbul 1973. (What a Guide)
Çoker Adnan, Cemal Tollu, Istanbul, 1996.
Dufieux, Ph., Lhote et le décor monumental, in: Moulin, H. (ed.), André Lhote, Exhibition
Catalogue Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valence, 2003, 80-93.
Erol, Turan, Painting in Turkey, XIX.th and Early XXth Century, in: Pınar, Selman et.al.,
(ed.) A History of Turkish Painting, Istanbul, 1987, 89-236.
157
Zeynep Kuban
Etting Emlen - Pacini, M., Studio in Paris, Archives of American Art, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1988),
pp. 24-35.
Genim, Esra, Nurullah Berk’in Sanat Yazıları, (Doktora Tezi), Marmara Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, Türk Sanatı Anabilim Dalı, Istanbul 2007. (The Writings
on Art of Nurullah Berk- PhD Thesis)
Gezgin A.Ö., Akademiye Tanıklık 1, Resim ve Heykel 2002. (Witnesses of the Academy
I-Painting and Sculpture)
Giray, Kıymet, Müstakil Ressamlar ve Heykeltraşlar Birliği, Akbank Yayınları, İstanbul
1997. (The Independent Painters and Sculptors Association)
Köksal Bingöl, Ayşe, Sanatın Kurumsallaşma Sürecinde İstanbul Resim ve Heykel
Müzesi, (Doktora Tezi) Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü,
Istanbul 2011. (The Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture in the Process of the
Institutionalisation of Art, PhD Thesis)
Lock, Tracey, Dorrit Black, The Unseen Forces, Adelaide, 2014.
Ödekan, Ayla, İki Usta İki yorum 2014 ITU Dergisi 66, 108-112. (Two Masters Two
Interpretations)
Pelvanoğlu, Burcu, Hale Asaf, Türk Resim Sanatında bir Dönüm Noktası, Istanbul 2007.
(Hale Asaf, A Turning Point in Turkish Painting)
Şerifoğlu, Ömer Faruk, (ed). Türk Resim Sanatının Asırlık Öyküsü, Exhibition Catalogue,
Rezan Has Müzesi, Istanbul 2009. (The Story of Hundred Years of Turkish Painting)
Üstünipek, Mehmet, “1923-1950 Arasında Türkiye’de Açılan Sergiler,” Türkiye’de Sanat,
40,:1999, 40-50. (Exhibitions opened in Turkey between 1923-1950)
Yasa Yaman, Zeynep- Ergüven Mehmet, d grubu 1933-1951, Sergi Kataloğu, 23.1.14.3.2004) Istanbul, 2006 (2nd edition). (Group d, Exhibition Catalogue)
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: The Tentative List of the Turkish Lhote Students - Zeynep Kuban
Fig. 2: The Mural at Istanbul Technical University executed by Nurullah Berk, Abdurrahman Öztoprak, Yaşar Yeniceli, Oktay Dikmen, Fresco Technique 5m x 12m © ITU/
Photograph by Korkut İlhan.
Fig. 3: Eyüboğlu, Bedri Rahmi, Mother and Child, Serigraphy 84x64 cm, © Istanbul
Museum of Painting and Sculpture.
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An Overview of the Turkish Students of André Lhote
Fig. 4: Berkel, Sabri, The Yoghurt Vender. Oil on canvas, 162,5 x 130 cm, © Istanbul
Museum of Painting and Sculpture.
Fig.5: Handwritten letter by Hamit Görele © Archives André Lhote/photo Duygu Demir
© ADAGP
Fig. 6: Typewritten letter by Burhan Toprak © Archives André Lhote/photo Duygu Demir
© ADAGP
159
Jalil Ziapour: An Iranian Student at the Académie
Lhote1
Jamaleddin Toomajnia
ABSTRACT
Known as father of modern Iranian art, Jalil Ziapour was born in 1920 in Bandar
Anzali, Iran. He moved to Tehran to pursue higher education and eventually
graduated from the painting department of Tehran University’s Fine Arts Academy with distinction. The French government granted him a scholarship and he
continued his training in Paris at l’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1946 and
at the same time, he studied at l’Académie André Lhote. After his return to Iran
in 1948 he established – in collaboration with friends – a modern art society
called “Khorous-e Jangi.” A journal with the same name was published as well.
Ziapour is widely acknowledged as the artist who introduced cubism to the Iranian art world. In a desire for participating in transnational modernism Ziapour
set out to translate cubist and other modernist forms in dialogue with a specific
set of local and traditional visual concepts.
Jalil Ziapour is considered to be one of the well-known artists in 20th century Iran
as he has shaped much of the art scene and the art discourse in his country. This
paper will thus set out to investigate his education in Paris with André Lhote and
discuss it in relation to his artistic development in Iran.
After an attempt to study composition at Tehran Music School in 1939, Jalil
Ziapour (b.1920 in Bender-e Anzali, Iran) began to study traditional Iranian
arts at the School of Decorative Arts2. From 1941 to 1945 he studied painting
1
2
This essay is part of my current Ph.D thesis project with the ITU Istanbul, History of Art program.
In my Ph.D thesis I am looking at Jalil Ziapour and his works in Iran and I undertake a comparison
with Nurullah Berk in Turkey. All translations from Farsi into English are provided by the author.
In order to protect Iranian traditional arts, founders of Madresey-ye Sanaye Mostazrafe and
especially Hosein Taherzade Behzad (Tebriz 1888- İstanbul 1963), established a section within
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Jamaleddin Toomajnia
at Honarkade (Fine Arts School, later renamed Fine Arts Faculty within Tehran
University) with a distinguished GPA score and he was granted a scholarship by
the French government. He studied painting at l’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts
and other studios in Paris from 1946 until 1949.
Ziapour returned to Iran in 1949 and established, together with Gholamhossein
Gharib (1922-2005), Hasan Shirvani and Morteza Hannaneh (1923-1989) an
artistic society named “Khorous-e Jangi” (Fighting Cock) and he began to publish
a journal with the same name.3
Through the mission of the Ministry of Art and Culture of Iran he founded
the Tehran Fine Arts High School in 1953. In 1956 he traveled across Iran to
research Iranian folkloric cultures, including textiles (Kiaras 2014:61) and closely
examined tribal clothes and ornaments. In 1966 the government appointed him
director of the Iranian Museum of Anthropology. Ziapour served as a professor
at Tehran University, Alzahra University, and Tarbiat Modarres University from
1978 till 1999. He passed away on 21 December 1999 due to a heart attack.
The first graduates of Tehran Fine arts Faculty in 1945 were Jalil Ziapour
(1920-1999), Javad Hamidi (1918-2002), and Hossein Kazemi (1924-1996).
They all went to Paris after graduation, Ziapour and Hamidi with a scholarship,
and Kazemi on his own budget.
According to their personal statements, Javad Hamidi and Jalil Ziapour studied
at l’Académie André Lhote. But so far only Ziapour’s presence is attested through
the Lhote archive and the records of other artists mentioning Ziapour’s presence
at the Académie (Wille 2015:21).
Another artist that appears in the archive of André Lhote in Paris is Mahine
Dolatchah. She belonged to a prominent family of the Qajar dynasty in Iran. Her
husband Mozaffar Firouz was a political opponent of Reza Shah and they had to
leave Iran. Firouz and his wife Mahine Dolatchah lived in Paris until their death
(Dehbashi 2001:1-17). In an article about a 1962 exhibition of Mahine Dolatchah
at Galerie Chardin, André Lhote is being mentioned as one of the ateliers
3
162
the school, dedicated to the education of traditional art. This was set apart from western academic
painting classes. They called this section “Sanaye Mostazrafe-ye Ghadime” (Traditional/
Decorative Fine Art School) (Jabbari Rad 2008:44).
Image of Khorous-e Jangi journal: https://bit.ly/2RVqRRS (26,01.2019)
Jalil Ziapour: An Iranian Student at the Académie Lhote
she frequented.4 Dolatchah never came back to Iran and there is no reference
mentioning her paintings in Iran.
Ziapour mentioned André Lhote for the first time in the articles he wrote for
Khorous-e Jangi. In these articles he mostly wrote about the history of western
painting schools. Ziapour quoted some statements by André Lhote without
references and refers to Lhote’s opinions about surrealism and cubism (Ziapour
1948: 13).
In the 3rd issue of Khorous-e Jangi from the year 1949, Ziapour published
an article titled “Painting.” Here he discussed some modernist movements and
introduced a number of western schools of paintings. He introduced the term
“Passages” as a technique that gives the painting a fluidity, where the eye can
move within the painting without obstacles. The passage of colours, forms and
surfaces is fluid and gives also cubistic works the “taste” and value of classical
paintings (KhJ.3 1949:16). In the 4th issue, Ziapour wrote that Lhote saw the
discussion about surrealism as futile, because surprising and provoking the minds
and nerves of people in such a way could not be called taste and artistry (KhJ.4
1949:4).
Ziapour often referred to André Lhote as his great master and emphasized that
he learned composition at Lhote’s academy (Ilbeygi/Monsef 2009:15). Ziapour
may have seen himself as a missionary, introducing and explaining cubism
to young Iranian artists through his articles in Khorous-e Jangi and in other
publications. In a lecture in Tehran in 1950, Ziapour referred to cubism as a “4th
dimension” or a “relative time” (Saber Tehrani 2003:215). He explained how
cubist painters displayed the time element by presenting objects from more than
two or three angles (Ziapour 1950: 2).
However, Ziapour valued the variety of local cultures and on many occasions
he spoke about ’Iranian cubism’ that derived – according to him – from Iranian
and Islamic geometric patterns, miniatures and folkloric colours, that Iranian
people used traditionally (Ilbeygi/Monsef 2009:18). In his artworks he thus tried
to re-create the conception of Iranian tiles and miniature compositions in an
attempt to localise cubism. (Fig. 1)
4
https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1962/10/19/m-dolatchah_2357867_1819218.
html?xtmc=mahine_dolatchah&xtcr=2, (22.11.2018)
163
Jamaleddin Toomajnia
Ziapour chose the square as the module and element that he borrowed from
Iranian traditional art such as ceramics or carpets and he called it "Iranian cubism"
(Ilbeygi/Monsef 2009:18). (Fig. 2, Fig. 3)
He kept his style by using squares up to his latest paintings, in which he worked
abstract and non-figurative. (Fig. 4)
Theory of Ziapour
A close connection between Lhote and Ziapour can be found in some of the
latter’s writings. Not unlike Lhote who directed his students with clear ideas
about the essentials in art, by looking at classic works of art, Ziapour’s desire to
develop an artistic formula, was set in close connection with the Iranian context.
What later came to be known as the “Ziapour Theory” was written as an article
for the “Mehr-e Iran” newspaper in October 1948 but the publishers returned
the article asking him to simplify it (Boghrati 2007:68). He ended up writing the
article entitled: “Refusing the Old Theories and Contemporary Ideologies from
Primitivism to Surrealism.” Ziapour encouraged Iranian artists to work without
any forms from nature and to avoid any narrative subjects. He wanted the artists to
find aesthetic principles of painting in colours and lines (Ziapour 1948:11).
According to Hushang Peimani, who was an opponent to cubism and cubist
ideas, Ziapour had printed the theory in an article as an appendix to the Kavir5
journal, but had later decided not to publish it. Houshang Peimani mentioned this
and published the title page of this writing as the new theory of Ziapour in his own
book (Refusing the ideas of Cubism) in 1955 for the first time (Peimani 1955:27).
Peimani also claimed that Ziapour gave him a copy of this article and declared that
he himself was not a cubist and didn’t like these ideas at all (Peimani 1955:24) It is
impossible for us today to know whether this discussion really had happened like
this or not (date of conversation: June 10, 1954. Peimani 1955: 5-29). Yet, it shows
us, that Ziapour engaged in a quite complicated but original theory, something that
he never fully translated in his own paintings. In view of the early date of this
5
164
Kavir was a journal published by Ziapour, after Khorous-e Jangi and Panje-ye Khorous were
banned on behalf of the government.
Jalil Ziapour: An Iranian Student at the Académie Lhote
Fig. 1: Ziapour, Jalil, Sepahsalar Mosque, latest 1940s/1949?, oil on canvas. Collection of
Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Online sorce: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/82/133639/
art-art-the-avant-garde-in-the-streets/ (10.09.2018)
165
Jamaleddin Toomajnia
Fig. 2: Ziapour, Jalil, Turkmen Girl, Oil on Canvas,
80 x 180 cm, 1957, Collection of Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Online sorce: http://www.ziapour.
com/wp-content/gallery/artworks/artwork04.jpg
(10.01.2018)
Fig. 3: Ziapour, Jalil, Nomads, Oil on canvas, 3 pieces each piece 120 x 180 cm, 1983,
Collection of Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Keshmirshekan 2013:57)
166
Jalil Ziapour: An Iranian Student at the Académie Lhote
Fig. 4: Ziapour, Jalil, Me and Flight, Oil on canvas, 105x135 cm, 1997, Collection of
Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Ilbeygi/Monsef 2009:27)
167
Jamaleddin Toomajnia
discussion, his excitement for cubism is understandable as he must have percieved
it as an art form that was capable of revolutionising Iranian art.
Conclusion
Lhote’s adherence to classical works of art was highly attractive for Jalil Ziapour.
Ziapour saw Lhote’s cautious introduction to modernism as a way to reconcile
cubism with aspects of traditional Iranian art. Ziapour took the square as the
simplest unit in the geometric system of traditional Iranian arts and he literally
used it as a passage to modernist art. In his writings, Ziapour introduced André
Lhote as his teacher in Paris and not unlike his teacher he was an educator, writer
and art critic. While Ziapour tried to establish himself as an authority on the
principals related to abstract painting he cannot be considered an abstract painter
himself.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Zeynep Kuban and Simone Wille for their support
and guidance for this article, Mahsha Ziapour, daughter of Jalil Ziapour, and Laleh
Zabolizade Master of Information Science from Iranian Academy of Art’s Library
for their assistance during the research.
References
Afshar Mohajer, K. Honarmandan-e Irani va Modernism (Iranian Artist and Modernism),
Honar University Publication, Tehran 2012.
Behnam, J., Iranian va Andishe-ye Tajaddod (Iranians and Modernism Thought), Farzan
Publication, Tehran 2015.
Boghrati, F., Ziapour va Naghashi-e Modern-e Iran (Ziapour and Iranian Modern
Painting), Herfeh Honarmand, 18/2007: 64-72.
168
Jalil Ziapour: An Iranian Student at the Académie Lhote
Dehbashi, A., Zendegi-e Siasi-e Mozaffar Firouz (Political Life of Mozaffar Firouz),
Shahabe Sagheb Publication, Tehran 2001.
Berk, N., Ustalarla Konuşmalar (Dialogues with Masters), Ankara Sanat Publication,
Ankara, 1971.
Ilbeygi, A., Monsef, M., Jalil Ziapour: Pedar-e Honar-e Modern-e Iran (Jalil Ziapour:
Father of Iranian Modern Art), Kaspi No Cultural Group, Bandar-e Anzali, Apr, Rasht
2009.
Hakimi, A. Nima va Naghashi (Nima and Painting), Do-L Electronic Publication, http://
do-lb.blogspot.com/2014/05/1393.html, (6.9.2018), 2014.
Hariri, N., Darbare-ye Honar va Adabiyat: Goftogoo ba Jalil Ziapour va Behrouz
Moslemian (About Art & Literature: An interview with Jalil Ziapour & Behrouz
Moslemian), Avishan Publication, Babol 2001.
Jabbari Rad, H., Nokhostin Madares-e Amoozeshe Honar Dar Iran (The Airst Art Education
schools in Iran), Roshd-e Amoozesh-e Honar, Vol5, issue 2, p:40-49, Tehran, winter
2008.
Keshmirshekan, H., Contemporary Iranian Art, Saqi book, London 2013.
Kiaras, D. Piche Shemiran 1332, Peikare Publication, Tehran 2014.
Medinei, N., ZIAPOUR, JALIL, Encyclopedia Iranica, online edition, 2016, available at
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ziapour-jalil (accessed on 29 June 2016)
Mojabi, J., 90 Sal No Avari Dar Honar-e Tajassomi-e Iran (90 Year Innovation in Iranian
Visual Art), two volumes, Peikare Publication, Tehran 2016.
Pakbaz, R., Encyclopedia of Art, Farhang-e Moaser Publication, Tehran 1999.
Mojabi, J., Naghashi-e Iran az Dirbaz ta Konoon (Iranian Painting (From ancient times to
today)), Zarrin & Simin Publication, 6. , Tehran 2007.
Peimani, H., Radde Nazariyye-ye Cubism (Rejection of the Idea of Cubism), Peiman
Atelier, Mehr printing house, Tehran 1955.
Saber Tehrani, Sh. Sokhnranihaye Jalil Ziapour (Jalil Ziapour’s lectures and research
writings). Tehran Contemporary Art Musum and Islimi Publication. Tehran, 2003.
Snelgrove, G., An Investigation of the Present Developments from Cubism
as Exemplified by the Work and Theories of Ahdré Lhote, a Dissertation Submitted to
the Faculty of the Division of the Humanities in Candidacy for the Degree of Master
of Arts Department of Art, The University of Chicago, 1933.
Wille, S., Modern Art in Pakistan, Routledge Taylor & Finance Group, London 2015.
169
Jamaleddin Toomajnia
Ziapour, J., Teori-e Jalil Ziapour ‘(Theory of Jalil Ziapour),’ Kavir Publication, Tehran
1948 (accessed on http://www.ziapour.com/theory/ Digital edition, 6.6.2018).
Ziapour, J., Naghashi (The Painting), Khorous-e Jangi Journal, issue 3, 4 & 5, Tehran
1949.
Ziapour, J., Nofuz-e Bo’d-e Chaharom dar Naghashi (Influence of the fourth dimension
(relative time) in painting), Lecture in Kakh-e Honar, Tehran 1950 (accessed on http://
www.ziapour.com/theory/ Digital edition, 6.6.2018).
Ziapour, J., Naghshe Nehzat-e Khorous-e Jangi (The role of “Khorous-e Jangi” movement),
Farhang va Azadi magazine, Tehran, 1979.
Ziapour, J., Sokhan-e No Ar (bring new words, the fresh words have another taste), (An
interview with Jalil Ziapour), Faslnameye Honar, 17/1987:76-93.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Ziapour, Jalil, Sepahsalar Mosque, latest 1940s/1949?, oil on canvas. Collection
of Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Online sorce: https://www.e-flux.com/
journal/82/133639/art-art-the-avant-garde-in-the-streets/ (10.09.2018)
Fig. 2: Ziapour, Jalil, Turkmen Girl, Oil on Canvas, 80 x 180 cm, 1957, Collection of
Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Online sorce: http://www.ziapour.com/wp-content/
gallery/artworks/artwork04.jpg (10.01.2018)
Fig. 3: Ziapour, Jalil, Nomads, Oil on canvas, 3 pieces each piece 120 x 180 cm, 1983,
Collection of Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Keshmirshekan 2013:57)
Fig. 4: Ziapour, Jalil, Me and Flight, Oil on canvas, 105 x 135 cm, 1997, Collection of
Tehran Contemporary Museum. (Ilbeygi/Monsef 2009:27)
170
André Lhote and Egypt
Mehri Khalil
ABSTRACT
André Lhote’s connection to Egypt was never restricted to the few Egyptian
students that passed through his academy. His exhaustive research on ancient
Egyptian art is obvious from his early writings. His relationship with an Egyptian diplomat and artist, Mohamed Naghi, gave him the opportunity to visit
Egypt in January 1951, which was followed by another trip by the end of that
same year. Lhote received several Egyptian students at his academy and taught
many others during his visits to Egypt; nineteen are mentioned in his archives.
This essay focuses on Lhote’s trips to Egypt, his relationship with the Naghi
family and his influence on a few of his Egyptian students.
Introduction
“Of all the travellers who come back each year from Egypt with the desire to return, André Lhote is, perhaps, the most enthusiastic. Already as a young man, he
had been attracted by the art of ancient Egypt, which he had been introduced to
by Prisse d’Avennes.1 Old copies found in a box gave me the pleasure of meeting
André Lhote, in whom it was not difficult to recognise a mighty admiration for
Egyptian art that only required to flourish. At the time, to complete his evolution,
he lacked the shock of a direct contact with the country, he also lacked the joy of
knowing the works of ancient Egypt, no longer in the artificial setting of our museums, but rather in their natural surroundings. He was lacking, last but not least,
1
Émile Prisse d’Avennes (1807-1879) was a French archeologist and Egyptologist. He recorded
the art and architecture of Egypt among other places, and his work became one of the most
prominent surveys of Arab art.
171
Mehri Khalil
the privilege of having been able to admire on-site the astonishing paintings of the
Theban tombs”2 (Lhote 1954: 5).
These are the words Jacques Vandier3 used to begin his preface to André
Lhote’s Les Chefs d’Oeuvre de la Peinture Egyptienne. Published in 1954, this
book was the culmination of two lengthy trips André Lhote made to Egypt in
January 1951 and December 1951.4 These trips were made possible by the artist
Mohamed Naghi, with the help of the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs and
the Minister of Public Instruction.
Even before his first trip, Lhote was full of admiration for Egypt writing that
“we owe everything to Egypt, and, first of all, the sense of greatness. This grace,
which continues to be at the service of monumentality, this hieraticism that allows
the resources of intimacy to flourish” (Lhote 1950: 125). In his book André Lhote
en Égypte, the art critic Aimé Azar reflects on Lhote’s fascination for Egypt, saying that “all the reflections of the theoretician of modern art [André Lhote] are
nourished by the teachings of ancient Egypt. The Egyptian painters were the first
cubists, the first moderns” (Azar 1978).
Connections between France and Egypt date back to Napoleon’s conquest of
Egypt in 1798, and while the colonisation that followed only lasted four years, the
period had a profound and lasting influence on Egyptian culture. In 1826, the first
Egyptian students were sent to Paris (Tahtawi 2011: 30) during the reign of Mohamed Ali Pasha (1769–1849); however, the first art student, Mahmoud Mokhtar
(1891–1934), was not sent until 1912, having graduated with honours from the
first graduating class of the School of Fine Arts in Cairo (Abou Ghazi 1949: 43).
The School of Fine Arts, established in Cairo in 1908, represented a milestone
in the modernisation of Egypt and was also the first fine arts school on the African continent (Nicodemus 2012: 21). Nevertheless, it remained constrained by
2
3
4
172
Original text in French. Translation provided by the author. All subsequent translations are
provided by the author.
Jacques Vandier (1904-1973) was a renowned French Egyptologist and the chief curator of the
Egyptian Antiquities department at the Musée du Louvre. He spent four years in Egypt, from
1932 to 1936, and worked at the French Institute of Oriental Archeology in Cairo.
Azar recounts that Lhote’s trips to Egypt were in 1950 and 1951, but Lhote’s diaries from his
archives confirm that his first trip to Egypt was from January 25, 1951 to April 4, 1951, and his
second trip took place between December 25, 1951 and March 6, 1952. I would like to thank
Dominique Bermann Martin for providing me with this information.
André Lhote and Egypt
academicism and professors who were mostly French or Italian (El Razzaz 2007:
20). Prince Youssef Kamal, the founder of the school, funded the first artistic
scholarship, which allowed Mahmoud Mokhtar to go to Paris to study first under
Jules-Felix Coutan and then at the École des Beaux-Arts. From then on, Egyptian
artists travelled to Paris on a regular basis (Reid 2002: 242).
Lhote, the Naghis and Egypt
In a biographical essay, the Egyptian artist Effat Naghi (1905–1994) writes that
her brother, the prominent artist and diplomat Mohamed Naghi (1888–1956), became a regular visitor of André Lhote and the cubist school starting 1927 (Nagui
1975). Subsequently, the two artists maintained a strong friendship and corresponded extensively on what mattered most to both of them: art.
Born to an Alexandrian aristocratic family, Mohamed Naghi studied at the
Faculty of Law in Lyon from 1906 to 1910. Eventually, he travelled to Florence
from 1910 to 1914 to pursue his real vocation: painting. The beginning of the
World War I forced him to return to Egypt. There, he rediscovered his cultural
heritage and spent lengthy times in Luxor. During this time, “Naghi alternated
between studies in Europe and the discovery of Egypt, between being a European cosmopolite and an Egyptian patriot” (Williams 2005: 431). In 1918, after
the war had ended, he returned to France. He stayed in Giverny for a year, where
he painted with Claude Monet and became an “Egyptian impressionist” (Naghi
1988).
From 1925 to 1930, Naghi was sent on diplomatic missions to Rio de Janeiro,
Prague, and Paris, where he met Lhote in 1927. The latter introduced Naghi to the
works of Paul Gauguin, which greatly influenced his oeuvre. It was also during that
time that Naghi was decorated with the Legion of Honour (Williams 2005: 431).
Naghi resigned from the diplomatic world in 1930 but was later sent on a
mission to Ethiopia, this time on an artistic assignment. There, he executed many
landscapes and portraits, including a portrait of the emperor Haile Selassie I.
In 1937, Naghi became the first Egyptian director of the School of Fine Arts in
Cairo. He then acted as the director of Cairo’s Museum of Modern Art from 1940
to 1946. From 1947 until his retirement three years later, Naghi was the director
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Mehri Khalil
and cultural attaché of the Egyptian Royal Academy in Rome. Today, he is considered to be part of the generation of al-Ruwwad (the Pioneers), who founded the
movement of modern Egyptian art (El Razzaz 2007: 86).
In his book André Lhote en Égypte, Azar provided a glimpse into the friendship
of Lhote and the Naghi siblings, referring to letters exchanged between the trio. In
a correspondence dated February 8, 1950, Lhote explained, “Egypt, in my reproductions (of the ‘Treaty of the Figure’), is, more than ever, in the spotlight”5 (Azar
1978). Less than a month later, Lhote wrote that he met the critic André Rousseaux,
who had just returned from Egypt completely amazed. The reader understands that
Naghi and Lhote had already discussed a possible trip to Egypt. It is obvious that
Lhote was adamant to visit Egypt and was becoming disheartened, as he mentions
the lack of progress from the part of the Egyptian authorities. Finally, in November 1950, Lhote communicated to Effat Naghi that he had been summoned to the
Egyptian Embassy and invited to go to Egypt for two months to teach and organize
a series of conferences. This trip took place soon after: Lhote left Marseille on
January 16, 1951 and arrived in Egypt on January 25, 1951 (Bermann Martin).
Naghi, who was Lhote’s main connection to Egypt, hosted him and took it
upon himself to introduce him during his conferences. In one of his introductory
speeches (date unknown), Naghi stated, “we salute this foreign emissary who
recognised in Egyptian artists this modern direction […] Lhote was the main factor that taught us how to evaluate our art without touching the essence that distinguishes it from other arts. The genius behind Lhote is his use of photography
only as a means of support because art can’t be duplicated or transmitted like
photography”6 (Al Koueidi / Dawestashi 2009: 398). It is indisputable that Lhote
did not waste any time upon his arrival and was already instructing art students his
own personal vision. He encouraged them to break free from European academicism and reflect on their own unique heritage.
In March 1951, upon returning from Egypt, Lhote worked tirelessly to organise an exhibition of his own work and towards the end of the year, he showed
more than fifty small paintings at Galerie Guiot in Paris, in an exhibition entitled
Voyage en Égypte (Fig. 1 shows an example of one of Lhote’s Egyptian paint5
6
174
Original text in French.
Original text in Arabic.
André Lhote and Egypt
Fig. 1: Lhote, André, Felouques, 1951, oil on canvas, 46 cm x 54,9 cm. © Archive André
Lhote © ADAGP.
ings from 1951). Around this time, Lhote sent a letter to the Naghis, stating, “as
you can see, I haven’t stopped being in Egypt since my arrival! Notwithstanding,
it was a grand idea that the angel Naghi had to make me come and, seduced, I
only dream of starting again, and this time, more officially!”7 (Azar 1978) He
explained he had already discussed another trip to Egypt with the Minister of
Public Instruction, Taha Hussein. Lhote planned to pass through Cairo, Luxor,
and Aswan, to work at several schools and to analyse ancient Egyptian frescoes.
Indeed, soon after arriving in Egypt, Lhote spent three weeks in Upper Egypt,
and had exhibitions at Aladdin Gallery in Cairo and at the Amitiés Françaises in
7
Original text in French.
175
Mehri Khalil
Alexandria. King Farouk had recently established the Ismail Prize for the arts,8
and Lhote was a member of the jury. That year, the painter Gazbia Sirry won the
prize, and Salah Yousry, a student at the Académie Lhote in Paris,9 received an
honourable mention (Azar 1978).
Azar asserted that Lhote’s visit to the School of Fine Arts in Cairo was scandalous because the artist criticised the academy. For Egyptian artists, trained in
the strictest academicism, Lhote’s method was truly unusual. Indeed, Azar notes
that from that day on, “an evolution, so as not to say revolution, was made in
Egyptian painting: all of the ‘Modern Art Group’ followed the Lhote school,10
inspired by the Egyptian mural painting” (Azar 1978).
On December 9, 1951, he wrote to Mohamed Naghi: “my Egyptian activity is
insatiable, I will add to this book (on pharaonic painting) another […] on the ostraca and finally, maybe a third on children paintings, which we have no idea of in
Europe.11 Afterwards, I could die!”12 (Azar 1978). Back in Paris, Lhote studied extensively ancient Egypt and started working on his book Les Chefs d’Oeuvre de la
Peinture Égyptienne (Lhote 1954). Lhote dreamt of going back to visit Gournah,
the village built by the renowned Egyptian architect Hassan Fathi. However, his
trip and his success in Brazil in 1952 interrupted this dream, and these two trips
will be the only Lhote ever made to Egypt. Nevertheless, he remained attached to
the country in numerous ways.
8
The Ismail Prize was established in 1951 by King Farouk to promote visual arts. The prize was
only awarded once that same year as the revolution of 1952 brought it to a halt.
9 Yousry was a student of Lhote in 1948, 1951 and again in 1956.
10 The Modern Art Group was an Egyptian art movement established by the art educator Youssef
El Afifi in 1946. It included prominent artists, such as Gazbia Sirry, Ezzeddine Hammouda,
Gamal El Sagini, Hamed Oweis, Zeinab Abd El Hamid and Salah Yousry. The group was on one
hand concerned with modern painting techniques, and on the other hand, with the search for an
Egyptian identity (El Razzaz 2007: 56).
11 Children painting had been an important subject in Egyptian art education since the 1930s,
following the teachings of the Austrian Franz Cizek (1865-1945) and his Child Art Movement.
The Egyptian art educator Habib Gorgi (1892-1965) developed his ideas further in the 1940s,
using the philosophies of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961). Gorgi established the
Folk Art School and worked with children. He disconnected them from Western teachings and
believed that if they lived in the same environment as ancient Egyptians, they would create
authentic Egyptian works. Lhote had seen examples of these children paintings at the Museum
of Modern Art and the Institute of Art Education in Cairo.
12 Original text in French.
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André Lhote and Egypt
One of Lhote’s Egyptian paintings depicting a Cairene neighbourhood was
used on the cover of the February 8, 1952 issue of L’Égypte Nouvelle.13 In this
publication, Azar dedicated an entire page entitled “André Lhote and the evolution of cubism” (Azar 1952: 102). The author provided an overview of Picasso
and Braque’s vision of the movement, before discussing “a new phase,” that of
Metzinger and Lhote. “In fact, the role of cubism in the creations of Lhote was
felt by a dignity, a sense of stability, which will be the essential qualities of his
paintings”14 (Azar 1952: 102). Azar examined the rhythm and harmony of Lhote’s
paintings, and the fusion of his vision with elements from nature. “He has contemplated so much […] The painter was able to depict displays of life immersed
in a much wider expression of life: from his popular dance scenes to the views
of Cairo taken from the minaret of Ibn Tulun. […] He adopted a nature that was
inclusive of all natures; making his sensibility also inclusive of all expressions of
life, from the beauty of Southern landscapes, the poise of pretty women, the millennial architectures of Egypt”15 (Azar 1952: 102). During and after Lhote’s visits
to Egypt, one can notice that the dialogue around the French master in Egypt was
instigated within the art world, which was predominantly francophone. There was
an interest to know more about him and his teachings, and his paintings on Egypt
aroused much curiosity. It is unsurprising that Egyptian students passing by Paris
around that time, such as Ezekiel Baroukh, Hussein Bicar and Samir Rafi, became
attracted to his Académie, and along with the Académie Julian and the Académie
de la Grande Chaumière, the Académie Lhote became one of the nuclei of Parisian art education and practice.
Lhote wrote an article in a special issue of La Revue du Caire, dated May 1952,
dedicated to the painters and sculptors of Egypt.16 In his essay entitled “Future of
Egyptian Painting,” Lhote discussed the works of Mohamed Naghi, Mahmoud
Said (1897–1964), Laurent Marcel Salinas (1913–2010) and Enrico Terni (1879–
13 L’Égypte Nouvelle was a weekly political and cultural magazine, established by José Canéri and
ran from 1922 to 1941.
14 Original text in French.
15 Original text in French.
16 La Revue du Caire was a monthly journal founded in 1938. It focused on literature and history
and was published in French. Its first director was Mohamed Zulficar Bey, followed by Gaston
Wiet. Alexandre Papadopoulo was the director at the time the 1952 issue was published.
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Fig. 2: Cover of L’Égypte
Nouvelle, no. 398, ser. 3rd,
8 Feb. 1952. © Archives du
Centre d’Études Alexandrines/CNRS, 2018.
1960). He wrote, “such studies would undoubtedly be as widespread, as popular
in Egypt as in France, if the professionals in the 19th century had escaped the
pseudo-teaching of Italy and France, where we saw the genius artists, the authentic artists, for a century despised and scorned by the official confectioners, the
latter practising, for the astonishment of the inept crowd, a painting without laws,
without virtue and without greatness”17 (Lhote 1952: 87). It is obvious that during his time in Egypt, Lhote became acquainted with the contemporary art world
through his conferences, lectures, and connections. In this article, he continued
to be contemptuous of the academic art world to give Egyptians the courage to
explore their roots. He added, “who will speak of the misdeeds of European aca17 Original text in French.
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André Lhote and Egypt
demism in the world? […] Who will show (more luminously than I could ever do)
the extent of the loss experienced by Egypt in contact with this academism and the
prodigious role it could have played in the artistic world if it had become aware of
the profound virtues of its national art?”18 (Lhote 1952: 87–88)
In Les Chefs d’Oeuvre de la Peinture Égyptienne, he described his visits to
Upper Egypt in such vivid detail that he was almost able to transport his readers,
allowing them to follow him inside the tombs. The book is approximately 250
pages long, with more than three-quarters of these featuring photographs. In a
chapter entitled “Actualité de la peinture pharaonique,” Lhote identified the similarities between ancient Egyptian art and the contemporary vision he had of modern art saying that the “the cubist movement was strangely overtaken by dissident
rifts that inexplicably meet those of Egyptian painters”19 (Lhote 1954: 16). Lhote
mentioned issues such as the lack of perspective, one-dimensional paintings, the
“eclipse” of objects that appear in one place, disappear and then reappear a second time elsewhere in a painting or on a surface. He also spoke of the Egyptians’
use of trompe-l’oeil and how they already depicted wood, something the cubists
would later do. Moreover, he alluded to the modern French painters of 1910, and
how they hierarchised objects depending on their emotional attachment to these
objects. He relates this to ancient Egyptian artists who hierarchised objects according to their religious and incantational importance. “To summarise, most of
the problems that obsess the most enlightened of modern painters […] all this is
wonderfully illustrated in what has come down to us from the message of ancient
Egypt”20 (Lhote 1954: 18). Lhote acutely explored the world of the pharaohs, not
as an Egyptologist, but through the eyes of an art historian, art critic, teacher,
and artist. This study was extensive; he surveyed ancient Egyptian art as a truly
Egyptian painting. No one had done this kind of work before him, and no one has
repeated it since.
Lhote wrote a final letter to Effat Naghi after the passing of her brother in
1956: “the memory of this friend who gave us so many marks of solicitude is so
vivid in us that there isn’t one week that goes by without mentioning him, will it
18 Original text in French.
19 Original text in French.
20 Original text in French.
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Mehri Khalil
be in Mirmande where he joined us during the long holidays, or in his huge home
in Alexandria overflowing with drawings, paintings and books, where he would
host us so wonderfully”21 (Azar 1978). Evidently, the relationship between André
Lhote and Mohamed Naghi was that of true friendship and comradery.
Lhote and his Egyptian Students
Although Mohamed Naghi was never a student at the Académie Lhote, Lhote
did receive a number of Egyptian students, mainly in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. He also taught many students during his visits to Egypt. Ezekiel
Baroukh, Effat Naghi, Samir Rafi and Salah Yousry are a few of the artists who
studied with him in Paris.
Fig. 3: Baroukh, Ezekiel, Untitled (Abstract Composition), circa 1950s, oil on wood board,
18.5 x 28.3 cm. © photo courtesy of Sotheby’s, 2018.
21 Original text in French.
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André Lhote and Egypt
Ezekiel Baroukh (1909-1984) left Alexandria in 1930 to study through a state
funded scholarship at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. In 1939, he returned
to Alexandria, where he joined the Atelier d’Alexandrie. Between 1946 and 1954,
Baroukh lived between Egypt and France, before settling in the latter in 1954 for
the remainder of his life.
Baroukh frequented the Académie Lhote in 1952 and took part in an exhibition
at the Salon in May 1952 with Lhote. He exhibited extensively in France, and the
French Fond National d’Art Contemporain acquired two of his paintings, Untitled
Composition (date unknown) in 1961 and Le Modèle (1983) in 1984 right before
his death.22
Effat Naghi (1905-1994) was another student of Lhote. While her brother Mohamed Naghi was at the Egyptian Royal Academy in Rome from 1947 to 1950,
Effat Naghi was studying fresco and mural paintings at the Accademia di Belle
Arti in the same city. During those years, she probably travelled to Paris as the
Lhote archives state that she joined the Académie at the same time. Lhote’s main
influence on Effat Naghi is that he succeeded in detaching her from her impressionistic style and steering her towards archaeology (El Razzaz 2018). Her training was further developed by her husband, the artist and educator Saad El Khadem who encouraged her to look into Egyptian folklore. Naghi was an innovator,
“[she] excelled in the domain of assemblage and the use of different chemicals
in her paintings” (Abaza / Shafei 2011: 69). The oeuvre of the trio composed of
Mohamed and Effat Naghi, along with that of Saad El Khadem, is seen as an investigation and homage to Egypt’s myths and legends.
Effat Naghi managed to fuse the occult to history and culture. Her interpretation of Egyptian folk art and Egyptian history redefined modern art and classified her among the pioneers of modern Egyptian art. Naghi started exploring the
theme of Egyptian folk art before moving towards abstraction and primitivism
(Fig. 4). This primitivism “differs very much from the one associated with modernist European trends because hers originates […] in the sense of identity […]
and her search for roots […]” (Karnouk 2005: 133).
22 The Untitled Composition painting was acquired at the Biennale that takes place in the town of
Conches-en-Ouche in 1961, while Le Modèle was acquired directly from the artist’s studio in
1984. Both paintings are currently in the reserves of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques.
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Mehri Khalil
Fig. 4: Naghi, Effat, La Nubie [Nubia], 1964, oil and acrylic on panel, 48 x 69 cm.
© photo courtesy of Sotheby’s, 2018.
Samir Rafi (1926-2004) studied under Lhote in 1958. Rafi’s artistic career started
under the prominent Egyptian art educator Hussein Youssef Amin. At the age of
17, believing that Rafi was an outstanding artist, Amin organized his first exhibition and he was soon associated with the surrealist group in Egypt, Art and Liberty, and consequently with the Contemporary Art Group (Bardaouil 2017). Rafi
became a prominent member of the Egyptian art scene at that time before receiving a scholarship to study at the Sorbonne. He left for Paris in 1954.
In 1958, he became a student of Lhote, whom he had met in Cairo at one of his
exhibitions in 1950 or 1951. In the painting Untitled (Abstract) from 1959 (Fig.
5), one can tell that Rafi started experimenting with abstraction and geometry.
Rafi left Paris and went to Algeria where he stayed from 1964 to 1969 and
became imprisoned after the coup d’état. He then returned to Paris, virtually a
self-exile, and continued to paint and write about art theory for the remainder of
his life.
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André Lhote and Egypt
Fig. 5: Rafi, Samir, Untitled (Abstract), 1959, oil on burlap, 100 x 79 cm. Image courtesy
of Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.
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Mehri Khalil
Salah Yousry (1923-1984) graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1947.
That same year he went to Paris, where he attended the Académie Lhote for a year.
In the painting Untitled (Reclining Nude) from 1947-1949 (Fig. 6), Yousry truly
emulated the French artist’s formal language through colour and composition.
Yousry went back to Egypt in 1948, and became part of the newly established
Modern Art Group, alongside artists such as Gazbia Sirry, Ezzeddine Hammouda,
Gamal El Sagini and Zeinab Abdel Hamid. He was then awarded a two-year state
scholarship in Luxor (Azar 1961: 393). Yousry would later combine his knowledge of cubism with pharaonic symbolism.
In 1956, Yousry settled in France and attended the Académie Lhote once
again. He exhibited widely in France and Belgium, and slowly moved away from
oil painting, preferring the spontaneity of gouache.
Fig. 6: Yousry, Salah, Untitled (Reclining Nude), 1947-1949, oil on canvas, 54 x 80.5 cm.
© photo courtesy of Sotheby’s, 2018.
According to the Lhote archive, the other Egyptian artists who studied with him
are Hussein Bicar, Sati J. Chaker, Nadia El Merdawy, Zaki Kadri, Sania Khairy,
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André Lhote and Egypt
Naguib Morcos, Amy Nimr, Laurent Marcel Salinas, Andrée Sasson, Alice Scander, Aly M. Shaarawy, Arte Topalian and A. Zaghloul. Further studies need to be
done in order to analyse the extent of Lhote’s teachings on these artists.
Conclusion
Lhote’s relationship with the land of the pharaohs surpasses the relationship he
had with his students. The French master sought to truly understand ancient Egyptian painting as an authentic and genuine genre, and in turn, the lessons he learnt
from the ancient works helped inform his own work, as a teacher and as an artist.
The rise of the nationalist discourse in Egypt was initiated with the revolution
of 1919 which resulted in the British recognition of Egyptian independence and
the establishment of the Kingdom of Egypt. Intellectuals and artists alike were
invested in developing a national identity and a national iconography, one that
distanced and distinguished itself from the colonizers and rooted itself with the
country’s own heritage. A few artists, such as Mahmoud Mokhtar, redefined the
Egyptian visual culture of the time (Kane 2013: 29-32), nevertheless, the vast majority of artists were very much confined by their academic training at the School
of Fine Arts in Cairo.
Lhote’s trips to Egypt preceded the 1952 revolution in which the King abdicated and the Republic of Egypt was established. As such, his teachings in Egypt
and at his Académie (with his Egyptian students), coincided with a critical time
in Egyptian history. His lectures and conferences partially shaped the cultural
discourse of the time and some of the students he taught became prominent artists
in Egypt.
Acknowledgments
I would like to show my gratitude to Simone Wille and Zeynep Kuban for including me in this exceptional project. I would also like to extend my thanks to Dominique Bermann Martin for her collaboration in providing information from the
Lhote archives, the Barjeel Art Foundation, the Centre d’Études Alexandrines and
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Mehri Khalil
Mai Eldib from Sotheby’s for their assistance in providing the photographs, as
well as to Lily Salah Yousry for her kind assistance regarding her father’s estate.
References
Abaza, M. / Shafei S. Twentieth-Century Egyptian Art: the Private Collection of Sherwet
Shafei. Cairo 2011.
Abou Ghazi, Badr. Mouktar ou le Réveil de L’Égypte. Translated by Gabriel Boctor, Cairo,
1949.
Al Koueidi Y. / Dawestashi E. Mohamed Naghi Kama Lam Yo’raf men Qabl: Hayatahu
al Shakhsseya wa Fanahu (1888-1956) [Mohamed Naghi the Untaught: His Personal
Life and his Art (1888-1956)]. Cairo 2009.
Azar, Aimé. André Lhote en Égypte: Étude Critique Comprenant des Extraits de la
Correspondance Inédite du Peintre avec Mohamed et Effat Naghi. Cairo 1978.
Azar, Aimé. “André Lhote et L’Évolution du Cubisme.” L’Égypte Nouvelle, no. 398, ser.
3rd, 8 Feb. 1952, p. 102.
Azar, Aimé. La Peinture Moderne en Égypte. Cairo 1961.
Bardaouil, Sam. Surrealism in Egypt: Modernism and the Art and Liberty Group. I.B.
Tauris, 2017.
El Razzaz, Mostafa. al Fann al Misri al Hadith: al Qarn al ‘eshreen [Modern Egyptian
Art: Twentieth Century]. Cairo: Ministry of Culture 2007.
El Razzaz, Mostafa, Personal Communication, interview, 03.12.2018.
Kane, Patrick M. The Politics of Art in Modern Egypt: Aesthetics, Ideology and NationBuilding. I.B. Tauris, 2013.
Karnouk, Liliane. Modern Egyptian Art. Cairo 2005.
Lhote, André. “Avenir de la Peinture Égyptienne.” La Revue Du Caire, XXIX, no. 150,
Cairo May 1952.
Lhote, André. Chefs d’Oeuvre de la Peinture Égyptienne. Paris 1954.
Lhote, André. Traité de la Figure, Paris 1950.
Nagui, Effat. Mohamad Nagui (1888-1956): Fondateur de l’Atelier d’Alexandrie.
Alexandria 1975.
Naghi, Effat, et al. Mohamed Naghi: un Impressioniste Égyptien. Cairo: International
Press 1988.
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André Lhote and Egypt
Nicodemus, Everlyn. “Introduction: African Modern Art: An Ongoing Project,” in Elaine
O’Brien et al (eds.), Modern Art in Africa, Asia and Latin America: An Introduction to
Global Modernisms, Chichester, West Sussex and Malden, MA 2013.
Reid, Donald Malcolm. Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National
Identity from Napoleon to World War I. Berkeley 2002.
Tahtawi, Rifāʻah Rāfiʻ, and Daniel L. Newman. An Imam in Paris: Account of a Stay in
France by an Egyptian Cleric (1826-1831) (Takhlīṣ Al-Ibrīz Fī Talkhīṣ Bārīz Aw AlDīwān Al-Nafīs Bi-Īwān Bārīs). Saqi 2011.
Williams, Caroline. “Twentieth-Century Egyptian Art: The Pioneers, 1920-52.” Re-Envisioning Egypt: 1919-1952, Cairo, New York 2005, pp. 426–447.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Lhote, André, Felouques, 1951, oil on canvas, 46 cm x 54,9 cm. © Archives André
Lhote © ADAGP.
Fig. 2: Cover of L’Égypte Nouvelle, no. 398, ser. 3rd, 8 Feb. 1952. © Archives du Centre
d’Études Alexandrines/CNRS, 2018.
Fig. 3: Baroukh, Ezekiel, Untitled (Abstract Composition), circa 1950s, oil on wood board,
18.5 x 28.3 cm. © photo courtesy of Sotheby’s, 2018.
Fig. 4: Naghi, Effat, La Nubie [Nubia], 1964, oil and acrylic on panel, 48 x 69 cm. © photo
courtesy of Sotheby’s, 2018.
Fig. 5: Rafi, Samir, Untitled (Abstract), 1959, oil on burlap, 100 x 79 cm. Image courtesy
of Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.
Fig. 6: Yousry, Salah, Untitled (Reclining Nude), 1947-1949, oil on canvas, 54 x 80.5 cm.
© photo courtesy of Sotheby’s, 2018.
187
South Asian Artists at the Académie André Lhote
Simone Wille
ABSTRACT
While some artistic exchange between India and France can be identified in
the first part of the 20th century, this intensified in the postwar era. Most of the
South Asian artists going to Paris continued their artistic formation and thus the
majority of them attended classes in one of the many independent art schools
like l’Académie Julian, l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière, l’Académie André Lhote, l’Atelier de Fernand Léger and Stanley Hayter’s Atelier 17. Since
André Lhote’s Académie seemingly had a special attraction, this essay will
take a closer look at the South Asian artists who studied with Lhote.
Introduction
For most South Asian modernist artists heading to Europe for art training, London
had – in most cases – been their first destination (Mitter 2001: 206). Amrita SherGil (1913–1941) seems to have been the first artist to break with this tradition
when she moved with her family to Paris in 1929, where she was accepted into the
studio of Professor Pierre Vaillant at l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière (Amrita
Sher-Gil: 156). In 1930, Sher-Gil was accepted into the studio of Lucien Simon
as a student at l’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts. While in 1930 Rabindranath
Tagore’s (1861–1941) work was shown at the Théatre Pigalle1 – it is very pos1
Rabindranath Tagore showed his work in Paris at the Galerie Pigalle in May 1930. Exposition de
dessins et aquarelles de Rabindranath-Tagore (1928–1929–1930), Galerie Pigalle, 1930. In July
the same year, Rabindranath Tagore also showed his works in Berlin, at Galerie Ferdinand Möller,
Schöneberger Ufer 38. Five of the works shown were gifted to the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. The Last
Harvest, Rabindranath Tagore – 98 Meisterwerke in Berlin, Pressemitteilung Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Museen Dahlem, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, 2011.
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sible that Amrita Sher-Gil did not see this exhibition (Mitter 2007: 54).2 Shiavax
Chavda (1914–1990), a graduate of Bombay’s Sir Jamsedjee Jeejeebhoy School
of Art (J.J. School of Art), went to study at l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière
in Paris in 1937 as did the Bengali sculptor Chinatmoni Kar (1915–2005) in 1938.
The greater number of Indian artists going to live, work and train in France and
Paris, respectively, increased after World War II and after independence. Apparently the first artist to have received a French government scholarship was Nirode
Mazumdar (1916–1982) (Paritosh Sen 2007: 230) in 1947.3 Amongst the many
artists that headed to Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s were Francis Newton
Souza (1924–2002), Jehangir Sabavala (1922–2011), Ram Kumar (1924–2018),
Syed Haider Raza (S.H. Raza) (1922–2016), Akbar Padamsee (1928–), Paritosh
Sen (1918–2008), Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar (K.K. Hebbar) (1911–1996), Laxman Pai (1926–), Shakir Ali (1916–1975), Kaiko Moti (1921–1989), Nasreen
Mohamedi (1937–1990), Himmat Shah (1933–), Zarina Hashmi (1937–), and
Krishna Reddy (1925–2018).4
While not all of these artists were connected to art schools in Paris,5 many
did join one or sometimes even more than one academy or institution. Paris had
a good tradition and an established infrastructure offering art education with
the necessary studio setting to an increasing number of young and international
artists. While the more famous amongst the liberal art academies – founded in
the 19th century – l’Académie Ranson, l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière or
l’Académie Julian – turned into annexes of the conservative École des beauxarts, the more sought-after liberal circles, directed and led by renowned artists in
2
3
4
5
190
Partha Mitter in The Triumph of Modernism. India’s Artists and the Avant-garde 1922–1947,
suggests that it may well be possible that Amria Sher-Gil did not see this exhibition.
See also http://jnaf.org/artist/nirode-mazumdar/, (29 May 2018)
See also Devika Singh, “India-France: Artistic Exchanges,” Marg, Vol. 69/No. 1/2017: 14–21.
There are many more artists from South Asia that travelled to Paris after that initial period, the
immediate postwar era. An exhibition curated by Samit Das and Sumesh Sharma titled “Punacha
Parry” at Villa Vassilieff in Paris, 14 October to 23 December 2017, was able to add a few more
names to the list.
Akbar Padamsee, for instance, never joined an art school in Paris. Though many of his friends
attended classes at one or even more than one academy. Padamsee worked from his hotel room,
which he transformed into a studio and simply enjoyed the artistic freedom by which he was
surrounded in Paris. From a personal interview with the artist in Mumbai, July 2018.
South Asian Artists at the Académie André Lhote
the rank of modern trends, were l’Académie Moderne, l’Académie scandinave,
l’Académie André Lhote and l’Atelier de Fernand Léger (Maingon 2010: 219).6
André Lhote’s academy (lived 1885–1962) (l’Académie 1925–1962) had special appeal for an unprecedented number of international students. Due to the
accessibility and the good state of its archive it is thus possible to confirm the stay
of two South Asian artists, Jehangir Sabavala and Shakir Ali.7 Both artists corresponded with André Lhote and some of these original letters are in the private
archive of André Lhote in Le Raincy (Figs. 1, 2, 3).8
For Ram Kumar there is no confirmation to be found within the archive, yet
the artist has himself frequently talked about his time at André Lhote’s academy
(Dalmia 2011: 126).9 With Paritosh Sen, on the other hand, it is difficult to verify
whether or not he studied with Lhote. There is no trace of him in the archive nor
did he seem to have mentioned his possible time at l’Académie André Lhote.10
Some texts also mention that Nirode Mazumdar studied with André Lhote (Hoskote 2005: 52). While neither Paritosh Sen nor Nirode Mazumdar can be identified as having studied with Lhote, this text will focus on the three artists who can
be assigned to the lessons of Lhote.
India’s art scene of the 1920s and 1930s was characterised by the rivalry between Bombay and Bengal. Bombay sought to break with the dominance of an orientalist art education, practiced with great success in Calcutta since the early 1900s.
In this complex atmosphere colonialism increasingly gave rise to art as a nationalist
discourse (Mitter 2007: 177–225). By and large, the artistic scene was superimposed with “the provincial modernism of Britain” (Mitter 2007: 227), infiltrated
6
Claire Maingon addresses the situation between World War I and World War II. While the
attraction of both André Lhote’s academy and Fernand Léger’s atelier continued beyond World
War II, she does not mention the art schools that were formed in the postwar era.
7 While Shakir Ali’s letters are dated 5 and 24 July 1948, Jehangir Sabavala’s letter is undated.
8 While the letters confirm that both artists studied with André Lhote, it is unclear how long they
both stayed with him. The letter written by Jehangir Sabavala is not dated, but stored in the
archive in Le Raincy under the year 1948.
9 According to Ram Kumar’s CV he studied with André Lhote between 1949 and 1952. In 1950 he
also studied with Fernand Léger. See Mumbai Modern. Progressive Artists’ Group 1947–2013,
New Delhi 2013: 494. See also the chronology compiled by Mahesh Chandra in: Ram Kumar. A
Retrospective, National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House, New Delhi, 1993, n.p.
10 http://www.artofbengal.com/paritosh.htm. This is one of many websites that mentions that
Paritosh Sen studied with André Lhote, accessed 29 May 2018.
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Fig. 1: Handwritten letter by Jehangir Sabavala, signed: J.A. Sabavala, © Archives André
Lhote © ADAGP.
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South Asian Artists at the Académie André Lhote
Fig. 2: Typewritten letter by Shakir Ali, dated 5 July 1948, © Archives André Lhote
© ADAGP.
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Fig. 3: Handwritten letter by Shakir Ali, dated 24 July 1948, © Archives André Lhote
© ADAGP.
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into the curricula of the colonial art schools that were set up all over the Indian
subcontinent since the second half of the 19th century. A radical break from this
came in the later 1940s, after the partition of South Asia when artists began to rebel
against British academicism and increasingly had opportunities to travel abroad
and came into contact with artists and mediators from other parts of the world.11
Shakir Ali
Shakir Ali took his first art classes in Delhi at the studio of the Ukil brothers. Their
teaching reflected a late Bengal style (Wille 2015: 17).12 In 1938 he joined the J.J.
School of Art in Bombay. He remained with the school for seven years – “the first
six as a student and the last year as a fellow” (Marek 1967: 112).13 Shakir Ali left
pre-partition Bombay and entered the University College London, Slade School
of Fine Art in January of the year 1947, during the second term of the academic
year 1946–47. He remained with the university until 1949 and graduated with a
diploma in Fine Art – painting, drawing and design. According to the two letters
that Shakir Ali wrote to André Lhote (Figs. 1, 2), both from London, he was accepted by Lhote to attend his summer courses in the countryside in 1948, in Mirmande in the Drôme region and in Gordes in the Vaucluse region.14 By 1948 Lhote
had successfully established his field academies in the southern region of France
where he spent the summers touring and teaching classes between the three places. Shakir Ali, according to the letter dated 24 July 1948 (Fig. 2) thus joined
11 An introduction to international modernism—to Central European modernism—occurred in
Bombay in the 1940s through a group of refugees from Central Europe. Käthe Langhammer,
Walter Langhammer and Emanuel Schlesinger were from Vienna and Rudolf Reinhold von
Leyden from Germany. See Franz 2015: 288–302.
12 Shakir Ali’s artistic career has been researched. See Dadi, Modernism and the Art of Muslim
South Asia, The University of North Carolina Press 2010. For a convincing account of Shakir
Ali’s formative experience with European thought and institutions, see Wille 2015: 17–39.
13 See also Wille 2015: 19. The report of the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay, dated with the years
1945–46, lists Shakir Ali as a fellow with the addition G.D. Art (Ptg.).
14 In 1926 Lhote discovered Mirmande and set up a field academy (L’académie aux champs). In
1938 he set up another field academy in Gordes and in 1948 in La Cadière d’Azur. Summers
would be spent teaching and working in these three locations in the South of France. See
Bermann-Martin’s contribution to this volume.
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Lhote in Gordes. The photograph taken by Willy Ronis (1919–2009) in 1948 in
Gordes confirms Shakir Ali’s participation at Lhote’s field academy (Fig. 4). The
photograph shows Shakir Ali standing next to an easel with a painting depicting a
landscape. He smilingly watches André Lhote, who stands in front of him holding
a painting or a reproduction of a painting and addresses the audience composed
of six women and one man. It is obvious to assume that Lhote is discussing the
painting on the easel. The discussion of the individual works of his students was
an important component of Lhote’s teaching method. We further assume that it
is Shakri Ali’s painting being discussed here. The wall to the left behind Shakir
Ali is decorated with a painting from India depicting a battle scene. Without being able to clearly identify the others in the photograph we know from notes and
letters in the archive in Le Raincy that in the summer of 1948 Carl von Speglitz,
Mathilde Epstein, Cecilia da Silva and Huguette Cromières had announced their
participation in Gordes. In addition to this there are the artists who spent summers
in Gordes every year, such as Andrée Simon, Jean Dewasne and Justin Grégoire.15
And, naturally, Willy Ronis must have been present in Gordes, taking the photo.
Amongst the many publications and theoretical treatises that Lhote published
throughout his career, Traité du paysage (Lhote 1939), first published in 1939, is
a summary of his summer courses and field academies in many ways. In it, Lhote
speaks of the essence of art and calls upon his students to not imitate nature but,
rather, its laws and “under the guise of imitation to stir up excitement with pure
plastic elements: measurements, directions, ornaments, lights, values, colours,
substances, divided and organised according to the injunctions of natural laws”
(Lhote 1950: 37).16 While Lhote’s students in the field academies would study
drawing and painting in the countryside, he would, however, encourage them to
observe things closely and, from there, to prepare the necessary elements or ingredients which were essentially related to “order, method, figure or form” (Lhote
1950: 37).17 He continuously encouraged students to establish a coherent organisation for their composition and that this should be achieved by applying geometrical laws in order to open up a variety of possibilities. At no point did Lhote
15 I would like to thank Dominique Bermann-Martin for this information.
16 Wille 2015: 19–21.
17 Lhote also published a treatise on the figure. Traité de la figure, Floury 1950.
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Fig. 4: Ronis, Willy, Shakir Ali and André Lhote, 1948, photograph, © RMN – Gestion
droit d’auteur Willy Ronis Photo © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP.
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call for a specific visual result. This encouraged students to achieve their own
artistic results. Lhote’s approach of not radically rejecting tradition but, rather, to
update tradition and link it with the past, in particular, must have appealed to artists like Shakir Ali, who was only beginning to discover certain sets of traditions.
After remaining in Europe between 1946/47 and 1951, Shakir Ali returned
to Pakistan to settle there. In the 1950s his work was still marked by experiment
and we witness a number of still lifes being produced during this time. One such
still life (Fig. 5) is an example of how closely he followed the teaching of André
Lhote.
The composition seems like an exercise in putting together different shapes
and colours. While the table acts as the principle site of the still life painting, it
also becomes part of the subject of the painting. The painting with the empty vase
or jug and the bowl is defined by rhythmically placed forms that are organised on
a flat surface. If we take a look at yet another work by Shakir Ali, namely Village
from 1962 (Fig. 6), we witness the artist applying Lhote’s rules for a landscape
composed of geometric surfaces, defined by strong lines.
The main scene in this work is held within strong lines and defined by simple
planes and geometrically constructed staged architectonics onto which he places
stylised bulls. The stylised trees built with the help of geometrical forms are designed in such a way as to become part of the area formation. The three stylised
flowers anticipate later works where this element will be used as symbolic expression in relation to Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry and Julius Fučík’s writing.18 The
headless figure seated between the one tree in the very forefront and the architectonic block in the lower right part of the painting is puzzling. The two bellied jugs
or vases positioned on the other side of the same tree are necessary elements to
balance the figure, whose head has been replaced with a stick of some sort. The
figure here has been reduced to essential geometries, the lines that make up the
18 Shakir Ali was particularly moved by the Czech writer Julius Fučík, who was associated with
the communist party in Czechoslovakia, In February 1941 the entire party was arrested by the
Gestapo. Julius Fučík was arrested just a year later, tortured, interrogated, and executed in Berlin
on 8 September in 1943. While in prison he wrote the material for the influential book, Notes
from the Gallows. German translations appear as early as 1946. For an English translation see
Julius Fučík, Reporter of Revolution – Part II: Report from the Gallows, Prague, International
Organization of Journalists, 1983. Part I is a collection of newspaper articles. See also Wille
2015: 31–35.
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Fig. 5: Ali, Shakir, Still Life, 1950s, oil on board, 76.48 x 74.17 cm. Collection of Alhamra
Arts Council, Lahore.
other geometrically formed elements in this painting are echoed in the lines of the
figure. The figure is thus being reduced to its own geometric form that stretches
the limits of natural limitations, much in the way that Lhote proposed in his methodologies. By having employed Lhote’s ideas about equilibrium and stability in
his compositions, Shakir Ali was able to arrive at his own unique style. What he
was able to contribute to the Lahore Art Circle, formed in the early 1950s, lies in
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Fig. 6: Ali, Shakir, Village, 1962, oil on canvas, 69.85 x 116.84 cm. Collection of Mrs.
Mooneeza Hashmi, Lahore.
his transcultural experience that he himself only became fully aware of when he
settled in Pakistan. Lhote’s teaching of how the technique and composition method of the old masters could be applied to contemporary needs offered stability.
Lhote’s approach to composition, his very specific theoretical vision of modernism and, most importantly, his method of building on the past in order to achieve
modernism has offered a structured means to achieve a painterly modernism that
needs to be positioned in relation to the reality of life in Lahore in the 1950s. This
was a post-colonial reality full of uncertainty. It was a transitional phase that defined Pakistan during this time.
Shakir Ali was the only member of the Lahore Art Circle who had early international exposure. He contributed to the group a transcultural complexity and
experience with forms, thoughts and institutions. The group’s artistic practice is
characterised not by formal and stylistic agreement but more by a commitment
to an aesthetic practice that would enable positions that open the way for selfreflexive agency. As a group, these artists pushed the boundaries of local debates
on art and aesthetics.
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Jehangir Sabavala
Jehangir Sabavala (1922–2011) regarded Lhote as having significantly influenced
his artistic development (Hoskote 2005: 46–52). Sabavala’s art training started in
Bombay in 1942, where he enrolled with the J.J. School of Art, like Shakir Ali,
during the time of the last British principal Charles Gerrard. From 1945 to 1947
he studied at the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London where he met Richard
Lannoy, who became a lifelong friend. In 1947 he headed to Paris where he studied at the Académie Julian and the Académie André Lhote until 1951 (Hoskote
2005: 46). According to Hoskote, Sabavala commuted between the two academies and later, when he returned to Paris again in 1953, he studied at l’Académie
Julian and in 1957 joined l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière (Hoskote 2005:
47,221).19 The handwritten letter by Sabavala to Lhote (Fig. 1) shows the affection
and respect that the artist held for the French artist/teacher. Sabavala, who seems
to have lived in Rue Denis-Poisson in Paris’ 17th arrondissement, thanks Lhote
for having taught him the style of the “Atelier Lhote.” Almost apologetically, he
reminds him that having worked in India and in England, what he learned during
the time with him was a new visual field. Sabavala, according to Hoskote, enjoyed
the cosmopolitan atmosphere at Lhote’s Académie and seemingly felt at home
among a mix of nationalities (Hoskote 2005: 50–51). During his extended time in
Paris between 1947 and 1951, Jehangir Sabavala devotedly studied techniques to
become an expert in his field. At André Lhote’s academy he particularly enjoyed
the structured mechanism of the teacher setting up the course each Monday by
positioning the model and by offering a demonstration and then, by Friday, returning to the studio and discussing each individual student’s work (Dalmia 2011:
188; Lhote 2003: 113–116). Lhote’s emphasis on geometrical forms for the sake
of coherence on the picture plane helped Sabavala work towards solidity on the
canvas that would only surface in his post-Paris years. When Sabavala states that
“the artists cannot afford to proceed through the incidental and the accidental”
(Hoskote 2005: 51) and relates this to the path “between discipline and freedom”
(Hoskote 2005: 51), we are reminded of Lhote’s emphasis on mastering technique
19 I have not been able to verify any of this information and was unable to find out about the dates
that the artist spent in each of the institutions mentioned.
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so that it can be pushed “to its maximum degree of intensity” (Lhote 1950: 4).
Lhote’s meticulously designed courses, his teaching, his ability to clearly write
about art, past and present, and to bring it into relation with the contemporary
gave Sabavala a sense of direction. When Sabavala returned to Bombay in 1951,
he was confronted with a postcolonial country, a new country, and as a consequence Sabavala had to set out to find ways in his imagery to address this. While
India “made a forceful bid for modernism” (Dalmia 2007: 105) the Progressive
Artists Group (PAG), formed in 1947 by a group of artists who were encouraged
and supported by four central European émigrés,20 sought to align with international modernism. The PAG broke with the conventions taught at the J.J. School
of Art but also turned against the stronghold of the Bengal School. All of the artists in this group, including their European supporters, were migrants to Bombay,
“and most came from marginal groups or minority communities by virtue of their
religion, caste, and class” (Khullar 2015: 100). However, Sonal Khullar mentions
that there were other important figures who sustained the art world in India at that
time, and draws attention to “a coalition of committed cosmopolitans, Indian and
foreign” (Khullar 2015: 259, footnote 24).
Jegangir Sabavala, after his very prolific time in Paris, had to find a way to
translate his compositional priorities into the context of a country and a place that
had transformed significantly during his absence. While working with a variety of
contents, Sabavala approached the Indian environment often via still lifes, ships
and birds, never abandoning the formal impulse internalised through the teaching
of André Lhote. Jehangir Sabavala considered four of the environments he encountered in becoming an artist crucial. The Heatherley School of Art in London,
where he studied between 1945 and 1947, was the place where he was exposed to
academic painterly principles while at the same time experiencing rival ideas of
modernism in Britain. At the Julian academy in Paris, where he studied between
1947 and 1949, Sabavala consolidated Impressionism with a diffusion of form.
At l’Académie André Lhote, studying between 1949 and 1951, Sabavala had to
learn to subdue his impressionist enthusiasm in favour of a picture plane that is
primarily organised by geometrically structured forms. And, last but not least, he
names the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where he studied in 1957, to get a
20 See footnote 11.
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final impulse in how to refine one’s technique (Hoskote 2005: 191). As Hoskote
has repeatedly confirmed in his study of Sabavala, “Lhote had the most lasting
effect” (Hoskote 2005: 191) on Sabavala’s work. Lhote’s guiding principles of
how to structure the picture plane were among the key lessons to which Sabavala
adhered all his life. His continuous and extended travel not only to Europe but
more so within India triggered a breakthrough in the form of landscape compositions that would eventually become the territory from which he could comfortably
accomplish further transitions.
Ram Kumar
Ram Kumar’s (1924–2018) interest in painting took him to the Sarada Ukil
School of Art in Delhi, where he took evening classes. After meeting the artist
Sayed Haider Raza (1922–2016) in Delhi, Kumar’s interest in art became stronger and he eventually persuaded his father to buy him a one-way boat ticket to
France (Mumbai Modern 2013: 489). Ram Kumar lived in Paris between 1949
and 1951/52.21 In order to support himself he wrote articles for the Hindustan
Times. Already before turning to painting, Ram Kumar had been a fiction writer
(Verma 1993: n.p.) and his interest and passion for literature had been nurtured
and practiced in collaboration with his brother Nirmal Verma (1929-2005), who
became a notable Hindi writer. In Paris, the four articles that he wrote for the
Hindustan Times’ Hindi division on a monthly basis and the money that was
sent to him from India was enough for him to survive. Kumar also took French
classes and throughout his time in Paris made an effort to meet with locals, rather
than fellow Indians. He became friendly with some French leftists, spending
time with this community that he found to be easily accessible (Dalmia 2011:
126). Upon the invitation of a person called Rita Banerjee, Ram Kumar joined
the communist party in France (Dalmia 2011: 126). This is how he got to know
a number of younger but also established leftist intellectuals like Louis Aragon
21 Some sources say that he lived in Paris until 1951, while others report that he lived in Paris until
1952. In an interview, Ram Kumar said that he was in Paris for three years. See Dalmia 2011:
125.
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and Pablo Neruda. In Paris, Ram Kumar joined the Académie André Lhote and
later also attended classes with Fernand Léger. Not unlike others who reported
on the structure of the lessons at André Lhote’s academy, Ram Kumar compared
the lessons at Fernand Léger’s – whose art classes he also attended – with those
at André Lhote’s, saying that Lhote “[…] was more imposing” and while “Léger
would come once a week […] André [sic!] Lhote came every day” (Ram Kumar 2013: 126). Kumar also mentions that friendships with French people were
hardly formed, but that there were lots of people of colour and no racism at all
(Dalmia 2011: 126–127).22
Throughout the 1950s Ram Kumar’s paintings were marked by figures that
represent despair and displacement in the postwar world. While paintings like
Vagabond of 1956 visualise the proletariat’s isolation and loneliness against the
backdrop of an industrialised cityscape works such as Workers Family of 1955
move the figures into the foreground equalising the formal structures of their bodies with the architectonics of the backdrop – the lonely and anonymous streets. The
emphasis on form and structure, which would soon help him to move away from
the figure and replace it with forms of landscape, may well have been achieved via
instructions through Lhote. Thus, not unlike Jehangir Sabavala, his working out
of how to cover the entire picture plane with colour tonalities and form occurred
by emphasising what – in his earlier paintings – used to inhabit the backdrop, the
landscape or the cityscape.
Conclusion
Considering that, during the first half of the 20th century, South Asian artists were
exposed to and confronted with a conservative art education established by the
British, on the one hand, and with the stronghold of the Bengal School, which
22 In this conversation with Dalmia, Ram Kumar states that there were lots of blacks and Algerians
and this was the case because of the ongoing Algerian war. He also mentions that (we) South
Asians resemble Algerians in colour and therefore had to carry passports around the city. See
Dalmia 2011: 126-127. Since the Algerian War of Independence began in 1954 it might well be
that Ram Kumar is speaking of a later experience in Paris. He returned to Paris for six months in
1958.
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nurtured a “new ‘national art’” (Guha-Thakurta 1992: 3), on the other, Paris offered a certain allure of experimentation that must have been highly attractive for
these artists and which they may not have associated with London. Paris was also
the city in which one could meet a large number of artists and intellectuals and,
in combination with the many formal and informal art schools, for many artists it
was the city where one could simply be an artist.
What attracted these South Asian artists to the André Lhote academy has to be
seen in connection with Lhote’s professionalism of providing a clear set of rules
in how to rhythmically construct a composition and in being able to provide the
necessary art historical references for each student so that connections with the
past and the contemporary were made possible. Lhote, by establishing genealogical links between modernism and different historical settings, was able to show
these artists that modernism was possible by responding to tradition and that, in
fact, for him modernism was a continuation of tradition. While this position questions modernist myths of an avant garde premised on the notion of a rupture with
traditional modes of thought, debate and institutional practice, it may well have
provided a comfortable basis for artists from more traditional backgrounds who
were only slowly discovering traditions closer to their origins.
Aspects that most of Lhote’s students have articulated were his presence, his
weekly studio tours and discussions with each student and their works. This very
personal engagement, paired with an international and intercultural atmosphere
that Lhote’s academy was able to offer, must have provided these South Asian
artists living in Paris with a comfort zone from which they could set off to explore
further possibilities.
References
Dadi, Iftikhar, Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia, Chapel Hill 2010.
Dalmia, Yashodhara, “The Indian Canvas: A Hybrid Legacy,” in: Dalmia, Y. / Hashmi, S.
(eds), Memory, Metaphor, Mutations. Contemporary Art of India and Pakistan, New
Delhi 2007.
Dalmia, Y., “Paritosh Sen in conversation with Yashodhara Dalmia,” in: Dalmia, Y. (ed.),
Journeys: Four Generations of Indian Artists in their own Words. Vol. 1, Oxford 2011.
205
Simone Wille
Dalmia, Yashodhara, “Ram Kumar in conversation with Yashodhara Dalmia,” in: Dalmia,
Y. (ed.), Journeys. Four Generations of Indian Artists in their own Words. Vol. 1,
Oxford 2011.
Dalmia, Y., “Jehangir Sabavala in conversation with Yashodhara Dalmia,” in: Dalmia, Y.
(ed.), Journeys: Four Generations of Indian Artists in their own Words. Vol. 1, Oxford
2011.
Franz, Margit, Gateway India. Deutschsprachiges Exil in Indien zwischen britischer
Kolonialherrschaft, Maharadschas und Gandhi, Graz 2015.
Guha-Thakurta, Tapati, The Making of a New ‘Indian’ Art. Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850–1920, Cambridge 1992.
Hoskote, Ranjit, The Crucible of Painting. The Art of Jehangir Sabavala, Bombay 2005.
Khullar, Sonal, Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity, and Modernism in
India, 1930–1990, Oakland, California 2015.
Lhote, André, Traité du paysage, collection Ecrits d’artistes, Floury 1939. Rééditions 1941,
augmentées 1946, 1948. First published in English by A. Zwemmer Limited London
1950.
Lhote, A., Traité de la figure, Floury 1950.
Lhote, A., Treatise on Landscape Painting, A. Zwemmer Limited London 1950.
Marek, Jan, “Shakir Ali,” New Orient Bimonthly: Journal for the Modern and Ancient
Cultures of Asia and Africa, vol. 6, no. 4, Prague August 1967.
Mitter, Partha, Indian Art. Oxford History of Art, Oxford 2001.
Mitter, P., The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-garde 1922–1947,
London 2007.
Singh, Devika, “India-France: Artistic Exchanges,” Marg 69/1/2017, Mumbai.
Wille, Simone, Modern Art in Pakistan: History, Tradition, Place, New Delhi, London
2015.
Exhibition Catalogues
Amrita Sher-Gil. Eine Indische Künstlerfamilie im 20. Jahrhundert, München 2006.
Mumbai Modern. Progressive Artists’ Group 1947–2013, New Delhi 2013.
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South Asian Artists at the Académie André Lhote
Archival Material
Annual Report of the Sir J.J. School of Art Bombay, 1945–46. Printed at the Government
Central Press, Bombay 1951.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Handwritten Letter by Jehangir Sabavala, signed: J.A. Sabavala, © Archives
André Lhote © ADAGP.
Fig. 2: Handwritten Letter by Shakir Ali, dated 5 juillet 1948, © Archives André Lhote
© ADAGP.
Fig. 3: Handwritten Letter by Shakir Ali, dated 24 juillet 1948, © Archives André Lhote
© ADAGP.
Fig. 4: Ronis, Willy, Shakir Ali and André Lhote, 1948, photograph, © RMN – Gestion
droit d’auteur Willy Ronis Photo © Archives André Lhote © ADAGP.
Fig. 5: Ali, Shakir, Still Life, 1950s, oil on board, 76,48 x 74,17 cm. Collection of Alhamra
Arts Council, Lahore.
Fig. 6: Ali, Shakir, Village, 1962, oil on canvas, 69,85 x 116,84 cm. Collection of Mrs.
Mooneeza Hashmi, Lahore.
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André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
Chinghsin Wu
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the connections between André Lhote and Japanese
modern art, including works by Lhote that were exhibited in Japan from the
1910s to the 1920s, Japanese artists who went to study with Lhote in France
and their experiences, and Lhote’s artistic concepts and theories, as introduced
to Japan. Although Lhote has largely been forgotten within contemporary
Japanese discourse on modern art, I argue that Lhote was actually one of the
more influential modern European artists in Japan in the early decades of the
twentieth century. His syncretic approach to modern art, which often mixed
classical elements with a modern visual lexicon, made his works and theories
attractive to Japanese artists who found Lhote’s methods useful as a point of
entry to both modern art and western art in general.
The name “André Lhote” has been largely forgotten within contemporary Japanese discourses on the history of modern art. Yet in the early 1900s, Lhote
played an important role in the introduction of avant-garde art concepts and
practice to Japan. In 1910s Japan, when opportunities to view actual avantgarde paintings by European artists were extremely limited, art works by Lhote
were among the very first Cubist works to be exhibited in Japan. From April 11
to April 20, 1913, an exhibition held by Shirakaba, an art magazine that promoted western art, featured four works recently brought back from Europe by
Japanese intellectual Yosano Hiroshi, one of which was a landscape by Lhote
(Fig. 1) (Nihon ni okeru kyubisumu 2016: 37, note 6), exploring the interrelationships of line, plane, and color using loose strokes in an analytical style.
This exhibition was the first opportunity for a Japanese audience to see works
by western artists in a Cubist style in person; previously, they had only known
this kind of work from black and white reproductions in printed matter. As late
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Chinghsin Wu
Fig. 1: Lhote, André (1885-1962), Landscape, watercolor on paper, 35.4 × 53.8 cm. The
Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama © ADAGP.
as 1916, the art critic Kinoshita Mokutarō, in an article titled “Cubist Paintings,”
complained that he had hardly been able to see any paintings from this new art
movement in person:
“As for this new art, so far I have only seen Lhote’s painting that was brought back
by Mr. Yosano, Pechstein’s painting brought back by Dr. Irisawa and the German
artists’ paintings in the exhibition held by Saitō Kazō.” (Kinoshita 1916: 75)
Because of the happenstance that a painting by Lhote appeared in Japan at such
an early date, Lhote came to be seen in Japan as a prominent and important exponent of the Cubist style, and his works and theories were widely discussed. It
was therefore not surprising that when Japanese art students traveled to Europe in
the late 1910s and 1920s to learn about the latest modern art trends, some of them
would seek out André Lhote, who was already known to them from Japanese
discourse on modern art.
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André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
André Lhote and Kuroda Jūtarō
Among these students was Kuroda Jūtarō (1887–1970), who would ultimately
play an important role in further introducing Lhote’s art and thought to Japan. In
1921, Kuroda departed for Europe on what he called his “European art pilgrimage” (Botsugo sanjūgo-nen Kuroda Jūtarō ten 2005: 180-184). He had already
decided that he would not work in the Impressionist style, but his knowledge of
the latest artistic developments beyond Impressionism was limited to Symbolism.
Although he knew about the basic theory of Cubism, he had not had a chance
to view many Cubist art works. It was during his visit to the Spring 1922 Salon
des Indépendents and the “One Hundred Years of French Paintings” exhibition
in April 1922 that Kuroda first began to pay more attention to Lhote’s paintings.
After reading Alexandre Mercereau’s book André Lhote, Kuroda found himself
moved by the sensitivity, rhythm, and solid construction of Lhote’s paintings and
decided to try to become one of Lhote’s disciples (Kuroda 1923: 14). On May
20, 1922, Kuroda went to knock on the door of Lhote’s studio at the Montparnasse Academy (l’académie Montparnasse) and was accepted as one of Lhote’s
students. Kuroda recalled that the majority of the students were women and most
were from Northern Europe, along with one American, a few French, and Kuroda
as the only Japanese (Kuroda 1923: 14-16). Kuroda described that from June,
after Lhote suddenly started insisting on using only male models and made them
wear clothing in the style of Dominican monks, many of his students found this
new approach excessively idiosyncratic and gradually quit. In the end, only Kuroda remained (Kuroda 1923: 18).
Lhote taught Kuroda that he should “paint like a sculptor,” and “sculpt” what
he wanted to paint. Lhote also advised Kuroda to go to the Louvre to view works
by the classical Spanish painters El Greco, Jusepe de Ribera, and Francisco de
Zurbarán and then compared Kuroda’s paintings with their paintings and pointed
out Kuroda’s insufficiencies (Kuroda 1923: 18).
Kuroda’s 1922 work Harbor Women (The National Museum of Modern Art,
Tokyo), which was probably painted while he was under Lhote’s tutelage, shows
four nude women with classical poses, lying, sitting, or standing in an interior
space with a window facing outside. Except for slightly simplified facial expressions, they are realistically depicted, emphasizing the volume of their bodies.
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Chinghsin Wu
Lhote’s influence is also evident in the blend of classicism and Cubism found in
another of Kuroda’s works painted in 1922, Madeleine le Punchi (Fig. 2). The
nude woman in the foreground is painted in a classical mode, with a stable and
constructed pose, emphasizing the volume of her body, while the landscape surrounding her indicates Kuroda’s interest in Cubist landscape, recalling Cubists’
deformation of the elements of trees and houses and minimal use of color.
Fig. 2: Kuroda, Jūtarō (1887–1970), Madeleine le Punchi, 1922, oil on canvas, 59.3 x
72.8 cm. The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
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André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
André Lhote and Kawaguchi Kigai
Another Japanese artist who studied under Lhote a few year later was Kawaguchi Kigai (1892-1966). In 1924, Kawaguchi was completing a four year stay in
Europe and decided to extend his stay in France indefinitely. Kawaguchi briefly
returned to Japan to retrieve his family and began back to Paris to embark on
a much more serious investigation of modern art. He built himself a studio in
Clamart, a southwestern suburb of Paris, and began to explore various forms of art
intensively. His friends recalled that he had a hard time striking the right balance
between the academic training he had previously received and the avant-garde
style he desired. For example, Satomi Katsuzō (1895-1981), a fellow Japanese
artist in Paris, recalled, “He [Kawaguchi] could not easily break free from the
staid academic training and techniques he had learned in the past […] at the same
time, he struggled to resist the energetic charm of Fauvism and Cubism” (Satomi
1933: 38).
By combining aspects of both western classicism and Cubism, Lhote offered
Kawaguchi a way out of this dilemma, which was similar to that experienced
by Kuroda. Around July 1925, Kawaguchi began studying at l’Académie Lhote
(Kawaguchi Kigai ten 1999: 8-9). He abandoned the idea of representing detailed
surfaces, broke down the objects into smaller and more basic visual elements,
such as blocks of colors and lines, and constructed them more sculpturally using
a much more concise visual language. As a result, Kawaguchi’s works from this
period rather closely approximate Lhote’s own style.
Kawaguchi’s 1925 painting Nudes (Fig. 3), for example, strongly recalled
Lhote’s Bathers, painted in 1917 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen). Compared to
his previous works, Kawaguchi’s nude paintings under Lhote’s tutelage represent a significant breakthrough to a more naturalistic approach. Although Lhote’s
nudes are much more abstract, and the contrast of light and shade, background
and foreground, is more unified by straight lines and geometric shapes of color,
Kawaguchi’s nudes do share the similar concept of unifying the objects under the
right light, with classic yet simplified forms.
In 1926, Kawaguchi exhibited his works at an exhibition Lhote organized to
show his students’ work. This “Exhibition of the André Lhote Academy” (Exposition de l’Académie André Lhote) was held in the Galerie Au Sacre du Printemps
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Chinghsin Wu
Fig. 3: Kawaguchi, Kigai (1892-1966), Nudes, ca. 1925, oil on Canvas, 88.2 × 94.1 cm.
The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama.
in Paris from March 10 to 30, 1926.1 1926 was also the year that Lhote discovered
the picturesque village of Mirmande in southeastern France, setting up what he
called “The Academy in the Fields” and encouraging his students to spend the
summer there conducting a collaborative artistic study of the countryside.2
1
2
214
Pamphlet Exposition de l’Académie André Lhote (1er group) 1926, https://andre-lhote.org/
academie, accessed 7.6.2018.
“Académie André Lhote,” https://andre-lhote.org/academie, accessed 7.6.2018.
André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
Several of Kawaguchi’s works from this period continued to reflect the strong
influence of Lhote. In Landscape (Fig. 4), he mixes contour lines and strokes of
color that break the contour lines and blend the boundaries of houses and trees, a
technique comparable to that used in Lhote’s landscape paintings from the same
period. At the same time, however, Kawaguchi was also beginning to experiment
with a different type of expression that used much more defined contour lines
and shapes and a more subjective color scheme, such as Landscape (Montauban)
(Fig. 5). Kawaguchi’s tutelage under Lhote was a crucial period in his career
that played a formative role in shaping the more mature avant-garde style that
Kawaguchi would later develop into his signature Surrealist style paintings of the
1930s.
Fig. 4: Kawaguchi, Kigai (1892-1966), Landscape, ca. 1925, oil on canvas, 65.0 × 81.2 cm.
The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama.
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Chinghsin Wu
Fig. 5: Kawaguchi, Kigai
(1892-1966), Landscape
(Montauban), 1926, oil on
canvas, 90.9 × 73.0 cm.
Fukuoka City Museum.
André Lhote’s Influence in Japan
Lhote’s influence on modern Japanese art extended beyond individual Japanese
artists who traveled to Paris and studied directly under him. After Kuroda Jūtarō
returned from Paris to Japan, he energetically worked to further introduce Lhote’s
works, theories, and concepts of art to Japanese artists and critics. Kuroda maintained a strong relationship with Lhote and continued to consider himself Lhote’s
“disciple” even after Kuroda returned to Japan. Kuroda recalled that Lhote was
“a person who really cares about his students, so he wanted to know how I was
doing even after I returned to Japan, and would sometimes take photographs of
his paintings and send them to me” (Kuroda 1927: 49-50). In turn, Kuroda mailed
Lhote reproductions of his own works which he had exhibited in notable exhibi216
André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
tions such as Nika, the largest annual exhibition for avant-garde art in Japan, and
Lhote would reply with comments and feedback (Kuroda 1927: 50).
It was most likely Kuroda who invited Lhote to send his artworks to be exhibited at the Nika exhibition. Soon after Kuroda returned to Japan, several of
Lhote’s paintings were exhibited at the Nika Exhibition annually until the late
1920s. Examples of his works listed in the Nika catalogues include Harbor, Landscape in France and Still Life (Fig. 6) in 1924, Nude, Football and Landscape in
France in 1925, Nude and Bath in 1926, Portrait Painting in 1927, Harlequin
in 1928, Figure(s) in 1929 and Sleeping Woman in 1930. This eclectic selection
of Lhote’s paintings depicts a variety of subject matters, from classical motifs
such as nude and figure paintings, to landscapes of modern France, as well as a
depiction of the sport of football. In terms of style, it includes paintings in a more
classical mode and emphasize three-dimensional forms, others that use flatter and
more abstract forms with greater emphasis on lines and angles, and still others
that blend lines, colors, and shadows.
Fig. 6: Reproduction of André Lhote (1885-1962), Still Life, in Nika, Exhibition
Catalogue, 1924 © ADAGP.
217
Chinghsin Wu
Fig. 7: Reproduction of
Koga Harue (1895-1933),
Woman in a Shawl, 1925,
in Koga Harue, Catalogue,
Tokyo 1934.
Lhote’s works were generally well-received in Japan, and most comments by
Japanese art critics were positive. However, this does not mean that his works
were universally embraced without criticism. Some of the harshest criticism came
from the noted modern painter Yorozu Tetsugorō (1885-1927), who wrote that
“Lhote is a third-rate artist at best. He was always a person of inferior quality who
only dabbles in superficial theory. This kind of person cannot help but produce
mediocrity” (Yorozu 1925: 86). As an artist who was striving for a new, univer218
André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
sal – and universally modern – form of artistic expression (Volk 2010: 9), Yorozu
was not likely to appreciate Lhote’s blending of classical and modern avant-garde
techniques. Yet the very need to offer up this criticism attests to Lhote’s general
importance in Japan at the time.
Not surprisingly, it was Kuroda who was the most effusive in praising the
works by Lhote that were exhibited in Japan, within a series of articles broadly
critiquing the Nika exhibitions. For example, among the artworks by foreigners
exhibited in the 1925 Nika exhibition, Kuroda singled out for particular praise
Lhote’s Landscape in France (1925) and commented that Lhote’s “solemn composition and calm execution speaks clearly of his devotion to [Nicolas] Poussin
and Claude Lorrain” (Kuroda 1925: 93), two of France’s most famous classical
painters of the Baroque era. Evidently, Kuroda saw no problem with describing
Lhote not only as a contemporary modern artist but also as a devotee of classical
European artists.
The frequent exhibition of Lhote’s works in Japan also inspired other Japanese
painters who did not have the chance to study in France or elsewhere overseas. The
noted modern painter Koga Harue (1895-1933), for example, was experimenting
with a cubistic style in the early 1920s (Wu 2019: 43-75). Having seen Lhote’s
works at the Nika exhibition and likely having read articles by Kuroda praising
Lhote, Koga began experimenting and applying Lhote’s style in his paintings.
However, unlike Kuroda, who focused on the classical elements of Lhote’s works,
Koga was more interested in applying Lhote’s abstract technique for separating
the canvas into small squares and juxtaposing semi-realistic imagery with semigeometrical shapes, as can be seen in Lhote’s late 1910s works, such as 1918’s
The Courtesans (Petit Palais, Musée d’Art moderne, Genève).
In Koga’s Fish Market and Woman in a Shawl (Fig. 7, 1925), figures are separated by sections with different color or brightness. Koga simplified the shapes
of figures and objects and tried to “pattern-ize” figures or objects as flatly as the
pattern of the clothes or the pattern of the floor, which breaks up any sense of
volume and gives his painting a flat and decorative aspect. At a time when Koga
was searching for a more abstract mode that could help him break free from the
strictures of realism, Lhote’s semi-realistic, semi-abstract expression provided a
crucial point of entry.
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Chinghsin Wu
André Lhote’s Enduring Appeal
Beginning in the late 1920s, Surrealist paintings became the new focus of the
Japanese art world, and thus discussion of Lhote’s works gradually decreased.
Yet as late as 1938, an article by Lhote was translated into Japanese as “An Art
Studio of Anti-Academism” and published in the prominent art magazine Atorie,
suggesting that Lhote’s ideas and concepts still attracted significant interest in
Japanese art circles. In this article, Lhote discussed his general attitudes toward
art and his methods for teaching students. Even though the spotlight had shifted to
Surrealism by that time, a new generation of avant-garde artists still found Lhote’s
ideas about challenging artistic conventions appealing and relevant. His emphasis on constantly experimenting with each individual’s artistic potential without
limiting oneself to just a few types of art seems to have been appreciated (Lhote
1938: 15).3
In the article, one example of Lhote’s experimentation with new forms and his
efforts to overcome conventional approaches to painting can be found in his discussion of his attempts to “annihilate” conventional contour lines. Yet at the same
time, Lhote does not only want to break away from convention but also insists
that the conventional way of using contour lines is just as “precious” as his own.
Lhote declares, “The bourgeois preference for treating objects in their totality and
the child-like habit of encircling every object with a contour line have become
extremely widespread. It is clear that I will never achieve my artistic goals unless I exert extreme efforts to fully understand that annihilating this form, and the
“process” of doing so, are just as precious a reality as the crude and unfeeling
contour lines of amateur painters” (Lhote 1938: 15).4 This kind of “extreme effort” to overcome the hegemony of the contour line can be seen in both Lhote’s
own paintings (Fig. 1) as well as those of his students (Fig. 4).
Lhote’s omnivorous approach to drawing inspiration from artists from around
the world and from different time periods is evident in his discussion of how artists use line and color within two and three dimensions. In the same article, Lhote
writes, “I always bear in mind that there were two types of technicians in the art
3
4
220
Translation from Japanese into English provided by the author.
Ibid.
André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
studio. That is to say, those people with an affinity for light, shade, and depth, and
those people who are satisfied with only two dimensions, attempting to convey
the emotionally lustrous transformations of physical forms using only color and
ornamentation. Line, in this case, acts as the conductor of emotion. In particular,
I repeatedly drew inspiration from Matisse, Cranach, and to a certain extent, classical Chinese artists” (Lhote 1938: 15).5 Here we see Lhote casting a wide net to
draw artistic inspiration from French modern painter Henri Matisse, German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Chinese classical painters. Statements like this were inspiring to Japanese artists in the 1920s and 1930s, as they
experimented with blending aspects of European and Asian art into new forms
of modern art, and often found themselves just as intrigued by western classical
painters as by western modern artists.
Lhote’s flexible, non-dogmatic, and non-ideological approach is illustrated by
his statement on his philosophy for teaching students. Lhote states, “I do not force
my students to practice only one way of seeing. From the first day, I show my
students the outline of a method for picking and choosing from among the various
approaches in the broader artistic tradition.[…] I would like for my students to decide, drawing upon the assistance of the experiences with which I have provided
them, whether each mode of expression is in harmony with their own temperament, or not ” (Lhote 1938: 15).6
Rather than fight against tradition or constantly emphasize the new at the expense of the old, as many of his contemporary western modern artists did, Lhote’s
artistic philosophy and approach to teaching provided Japanese artists with a
more analytical and comprehensive method for approaching western art. Lhote
introduced his students to a wide range of modern, classical, and even non-western art, without judgement or prejudice, analyzed each approach in terms of pros
and cons, and encouraged his students to experiment with approaches that “harmonized” with their own temperament. For Japanese artists in the early twentieth
century, both western modern art and western classical art were relatively new to
them, so Lhote’s openness to both allowed them to study and appreciate both of
these aspects of western art without having to choose one over the other. Lhote’s
5
6
Ibid.
Ibid.
221
Chinghsin Wu
synthetic and syncretic approach and his openness to teaching all students regardless of gender or national origin help to account for his enduring influence and
appeal.
Acknowledgements
The author is deeply grateful for invaluable assistance received from the Tokyo
National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Gomi Ryōko of the Saitama
Museum of Modern Art, Moriyama Hideko of the Kurume City Art Museum,
Dominique Bermann Martin, and the editors of this book.
References
Botsugo sanjūgo-nen Kuroda Jūtarō ten [Exhibition of the Works of Kuroda Jūtarō: 35
Years Since His Passing]. Exhibition Catalogue, 20.8-25.9.2005 and 5.11-11.12.2005,
Kyoto 2005.
Kawaguchi Kigai ten: Aru yōgaka no kiseki [Exhibition of the Works of Kawaguchi
Kigai: The Path of a Western-Style Painter]. Exhibition Catalogue, 02.11-12.12.1999,
Wakayama 1999.
Kinoshita, Mokutarō. “Rittaiha no e [Cubist Paintings].” Bunshō Sekai 11/6/1916: 66-76.
Kuroda, Jūtarō. “Andore Rōto shi to Rojie Bisshēru shi [André Lhote and Roger
Bissiere].” Chūō Bijutsu 9/7/1923: 2-25.
Kuroda, Jūtarō. “Nikakai gaijin shuppin nitsuite [Regarding Foreigners’ Works at the Nika
Exhibition].” Chūō Bijutsu 11/10/1925: 87-95.
Kuroda, Jūtarō. “Rōto no hito to geijutsu [Lhote: The Man and His Art].” Atorie 4/8/1927:
48-52.
Lhote, André. “Anchi-Akademizumu no Bijutsu Kenkyusho [An Art Studio of AntiAcademism].” Atorie 15/2/1938: 15.
Nihon ni okeru kyubisumu: Pikaso inpakuto [Cubism in Japan: Picasso’s Impact].
Exhibition Catalogue, 01.10-13.11.2016, Tokyo 2016.
Satomi, Katsuzō. “Kawaguchi to Baku [Kawaguchi and me].” Dokuritsu Bijutsu 6/1933:
35-39.
222
André Lhote and Modern Japanese Art
Volk, Alicia. In Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugorō and Japanese Modern Art.
Berkeley 2010.
Wu, Chinghsin. Parallel Modernism: Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art in Modern Japan.
Berkeley 2019.
Yorozu, Tetsugorō. “Nika kai kansho ki [An Appreciation of the Nika Exhibition].” Chūō
Bijutsu 11/10/1925: 81-86.
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: Lhote, André (1885-1962), Landscape, Watercolor on paper, 35.4 × 53.8 cm, The
Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama © ADAGP.
Fig. 2: Kuroda, Jūtarō (1887-1970), Madeleine le Punchi, 1922, Oil on canvas, 59.3 x 72.8
cm, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
Fig. 3: Kawaguchi, Kigai (1892-1966), Nudes, ca. 1925, Oil on Canvas, 88.2 × 94.1 cm,
The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama.
Fig. 4: Kawaguchi, Kigai (1892-1966), Landscape, ca. 1925, Oil on canvas, 65.0 × 81.2
cm, The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama.
Fig. 5: Kawaguchi, Kigai (1892-1966), Landscape (Montauban), 1926, Oil on canvas,
90.9 × 73.0 cm, Fukuoka City Museum.
Fig. 6: Reproduction of André Lhote (1885-1962), Still Life, in Nika, Exhibition Catalogue, 1924 © ADAGP.
Fig. 7: Reproduction of Koga Harue (1895-1933), Woman in a Shawl, 1925, in Koga
Harue, Catalogue, Tokyo 1934.
223
Missionaries of Modernism: The Women Artists Who
Took André Lhote’s Art and Teachings to Australia:
Dorrit Black, Grace Crowley and Anne Dangar
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock1
ABSTRACT
Ever since critical re-evaluations began in the 1970s of the transformative role
played by Australia’s women modernists in the interwar period, art historians
and curators have given due acknowledgement to the special impact that André
Lhote had upon several key figures – Dorrit Black (1891-1951), Grace Crowley
(1890-1979) and Anne Dangar (1885-1951). As a practitioner, theorist and connoisseur, he provided these women with a strong understanding of the French art
that he championed. This paper traces their debt to Lhote in their paintings, their
letter writing, their later art classes in Australia and the creative life they came
to share with other artists. It examines how their combined and separate efforts
made their small, far-flung centres of modernist activity in Australia a clear instance of André Lhote’s international reach. Such was their evangelical zeal in
transmitting his pictorial knowledge that it is fitting to describe these Australian
women as missionaries of modernism.
The Académie Lhote that the artist had established in the rue d’Odessa, Montparnasse in 1925 was notable among the progressive art schools in Paris for its appeal
1
Dr Bruce Adams is an independent art historian based in Australia. Tracey Lock is the Curator of
Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. This paper is a revision by Bruce
Adams of their collaborative audio-visual presentation at the conference Correlating Cultural
and Ideological Positions at Istanbul Technical University in December 2017. The paper draws
upon the original research that the two presenters previously published in their separate books,
catalogues and articles on this topic. The principal published sources are Bruce Adams, Rustic
Cubism: Anne Dangar and the Art Colony at Moly-Sabata, Chicago & London: University of
Chicago Press, 2004; and Tracey Lock, Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, Adelaide: Art Gallery of
South Australia, 2014, second edition 2017.
225
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
to students from many nations. For English-speaking painters in particular, its
focus on the plastic values and rules of Cubist painting made the school an accessible path into the complexities of interwar French modernism. Lhote unified the
diverse backgrounds of his students by drawing them into the common aesthetic
stream of his universal philosophy of art based upon laws of pictorial construction.
He was just as forthcoming with his technical insights into the Cubist practice he
had cultivated since his early seminal role as one of the pre-war Section d’Or artists. By making his foreign students feel part of this lineage, Lhote imbued them
with a modern sensibility that was grounded in the classical principles of the past.
The three women who became Lhote’s advocates in Australia shared a common cultural heritage. As artists, Black, Crowley and Dangar had come to maturity when Australia was still an emergent post-colonial nation, loyal to the legacy
of its British imperial origins but receptive nonetheless to fresh cultural influences
from abroad. Their country had participated in the Great War and they were mindful of the spirit of reconstruction that followed, with national renewal being a
cause they diligently accepted. Their desire to find the tools for their future growth
was compounded by their physical isolation from all the major metropolitan centres of modern culture. By the mid-1920s the new sensibility that they and their
peers craved was represented to them most excitingly by Paris. One local source
of information was the Sydney-based art and design journal The Home, which in
1925 promoted a stylish, feminised image of Paris in the form of Sonia Delaunay’s geometric fabric designs at the Salon d’Automne. The Home breathlessly
described that event as “a symbol of all that is cosmopolitan, imaginative and
unbridled in France. It is the Salon of youth and youth’s mad ideas...”(Ramsay
1925:19/Adams 2004:16).2
The perception of a new liveliness abroad contrasted with the traditional cultural environment that Black, Crowley and Dangar collectively knew as art students in Sydney. During the war years and immediate afterwards, all three had
attended Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, located in the city centre on an upper
floor of the Queen Victoria Markets. Himself trained at the Académie Julian in
Paris, Ashton provided his students with a sound but conservative art education
2
226
See also “Cubist Materials at the Salon d’Automne,” The Home, 1 February 1925: 24/Adams
2004:16
Missionaries of Modernism
based on late 19th century academic figurative methods. This was augmented by
the atmospheric plein-air impressionism of landscape exercises around the picturesque coastal and harbour environs of Sydney.
After their student years Dangar and Crowley, who by then were close companions in their private lives, stayed on into the 1920s as teaching assistants to
their elderly art master. It was while she was still in that enclosed artistic environment that Dangar began to take note of the positive influence of Cézanne on
other young Australian painters then returning from Europe. Somewhat radically,
she started to include his example in her teaching. Always wholehearted in her
opinions, Dangar was emphatic when she later recalled the significance of that
moment: “It was Cézanne who converted me to what was called ‘modern art’ in
1924. It was he who made me see with a frightening violence the lack of construction in everything I had learnt from my impressionist masters, in everything I
taught to my students” (Dangar 1949:88/Adams 2004:15).
Indicative of the social pressures placed on the women, when the Sydney art
student magazine Undergrowth reported in late 1925 on a farewell party for Dangar before her departure for France with Crowley, it noted that “her object in going to Europe was to learn more in order to teach more” and further reinforced that
message by reminding the travellers of their national obligation: “O! You people
who go to the other side of the world and find there miracles of art and beauty, do
not forget Australia, she needs you most” (L.R. 1926/Adams 2004: 16). Such was
the weight of this national duty that the women never escaped its expectations
throughout their subsequent art studies in Europe.
In early 1926, shortly after disembarking in Marseilles, Crowley and Dangar
made a special pilgrimage to Aix-en-Provence specifically to immerse themselves
in the ambience of Cézanne’s studio and countryside. In a letter to her Sydney
students, Dangar was rapturous about the view from the studio window across
the town and farmlands towards Mont St-Victoire, describing the whole scene
through the prism of his art. In the rhythmic contours, she said, “I saw Cézanne
again, or perhaps I should say, Cézanne taught me to see his mountains” (Dangar
1926; Adams 2004:16). Yet despite her strong predisposition towards his example,
Dangar spent much of her first year with Crowley in Paris in comparatively cautious pursuits. Finding a studio together in Montrouge, the women attended the
atelier libre at Colarossi’s and took private lessons from a Beaux-Arts portrait227
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
ist, Louis Roger, before her dissatisfaction with those options led Dangar to the
Académie Lhote, which she joined in March 1927. The more cautious Crowley
followed a month later, having conceded by then that it was the modern work in
Paris that had the strongest impact: “my word, you come across the real stuff now
and then – modern, mind you, the sincerity and force of which makes you sit up
and think.” (Crowley 1927a/Adams 2004:17). Once she had crossed the threshold
into Lhote’s class, Crowley’s personal sense of release was palpable. She wrote
that it was “the confirmation of the WANT I had been feeling so long without
knowing exactly what the want was” (Crowley 1927b/Adams 2004:176). Lhote
vanquished the “ghost” of her past trepidation: “I was more than a little afraid
of what, I don’t know – something indefinable.” As for her charismatic teacher,
born in 1885 and thus just a few years older than her, Crowley said that he was “a
young man, very virile and enthusiastic” (Crowley 1927a/Adams 2004:18).
There was a raffishness about the school that a group photograph of the time
revealed – it showed Lhote at the back of his lively crowd of mostly female students, his arm casually on the naked model. Maintaining a steady demeanour in
the middle of the scene were Dangar and Crowley. Although the school was in a
culturally vibrant part of Montparnasse, with cafés like Le Dôme, La Rotonde and
La Coupole nearby, the diverse artistic and intellectual life of the district barely
distracted them as they set about learning the rules of Lhote’s pictorial system. As
if to assure her Sydney readers of her diligence, Crowley soberly advised them
that the place was “serious, hard-working and sincere” (Crowley 1927a/Adams
2004:1).
In the latter part of 1927 Dorrit Black also left Australia for Europe, but she
initially chose her own route, going straight to London where she commenced linocut printmaking with the British modernist Claude Flight. He was an artist with
whom she remained in lifelong contact, but despite their mutual respect the letters
that Black was receiving from Crowley and Dangar were persuasive enough to
prompt her move to Paris at the end of 1927 to join them in Lhote’s class. Black
recorded what she found there:
His teaching is from the standpoint of design, which is the basis of all modern work.
He draws his knowledge from the masterpieces of all periods, Egyptian, Chinese, Persian, Greek, African, Primitives and Renaissance, he is extremely catholic in his tastes.
228
Missionaries of Modernism
Fig. 1: The staff and students of the Académie Lhote, Paris c.1927. Anne Dangar is underneath Lhote’s elbow, with Grace Crowley to her left in the row below. Dorrit joined them
there in 1928. Private archive, France © ADAGP.
He judges the work from standards of rhythm, balance, proportion and life, and applies
these standards to its three properties – form, tone and colour. It is surprising the sureness with which he spots the weak point, where others would only feel vaguely that
something was unsatisfactory (Black, 1927-29/Lock 2017:36 & 217).
Among the differences that impressed the women was Lhote’s way of posing the
studio model. In contrast to Ashton’s academic practice of isolating the figure in
front of a white cloth, Lhote placed coloured drapery around the model to provide
an overall colour key that helped to integrate the figure into the adjacent space.
As Dangar noted after one of his classes: “do not lose the local colour but let it
be influenced by the things surrounding it” (Dangar 1927/Adams 2004:18). The
palette was restricted to earth colours, with a few deep tones and “many demitints.” Lhote also encouraged his students to gently distort the anatomical form
to fit the pictorial structure. Extraneous details were removed and the composition was controlled by a geometric arrangement of directional lines. This new
formal discipline was revelatory for Crowley, who wrote that “for the first time
229
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
I realised it was necessary to make a PLAN for a painting ... and that there were
abstract elements which were a vital necessity to be considered in constructing
a solid piece of painting” (Crowley 1975:12). Each week Lhote set a figurative
project and returned on the Friday to “correct” the results. His blunt critique of
the Australians’ work—”Votre tableau est trop impressioniste. Il faut organiser,
organiser”—soon eradicated the atmospheric painterliness of their Sydney style
(Crowley/Adams, 1973/Adams 2004:18).
Multi-figure studio projects such as Black’s Composition study of 1928 (Fig.
2) demonstrate how Lhote’s instruction subjugated the women’s individual styles
to the school’s common set of formal concerns. A lecture by him on Cubism,
which they transcribed for Undergrowth in 1928, highlighted the technical discipline his teaching gave to the period’s rappel à l’ordre. “Cubism,” he said,
opposes itself to the art which adopts without selection all appearances, giving no
thought to whether these appearances are in accord with the technical rules laid down
by tradition. The servitude of an artist who blindly follows the accidents on the exterior
of objects always results in paintings devoid of meaning and excessively sentimental.
Henceforth, we shall have an art which shall spring from technique before all other
preoccupations.
… This is the counsel I give to my pupils: You must be classic. Put yourselves before the model in a workmanlike spirit. See nothing in the nude, but the straight lines,
the angles, the curves, the tones cold and warm, the large, small and medium-sized
dimensions, etc. And when you have made a form which resembles a nude, the resemblance is the recompense of the seventh day (Lhote 1928; Adams 2004:19).3
The Australians were receptive to this pictorial regime, supported as it was by
Lhote’s knowledge of art history. Crowley followed his advice to study the tonal
tradition that extended back through Manet to artists like Velázquez, and at one
3
230
“Cubism—A lecture by Lhote to a Women’s University Club in Paris,” Undergrowth (MarchApril 1928): no pagination. This article is a partial translation of André Lhote, “Le nouveau
visage de l’art: Le Cubisme,” Conferencia, Paris, no. 22 (1 November 1926): 486-501. Another
of Lhote’s lectures with a similar theme was “D’un Classicisme nouveau,” A.B.C. Magazine
d’Art (March 1928): 70-74. Copies of these articles with annotations by Dangar and Crowley are
in Grace Crowley Papers, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Missionaries of Modernism
Fig. 2: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Composition study, 1928, Paris, oil on canvas,
54.0 x 65.0 cm. Private collection.
point she had a reproduction of Ingres’ work pinned to her easel as a visual reference for her work. Her absorption of these historical sources can be seen in her
Portrait of Lucie Beynis, c. 1929 (Fig. 3), a quietly seductive study of one of the
school’s models, whose form within the pictorial space became an elegantly geometric arrangement of muted earth tones and rich blacks.
Lhote’s respect for art-historical precedents extended to the landscape traditions that framed his appreciation of the regional heritage of rural France, as reflected in his attachment to the picturesque village of Mirmande near Montélimar
in the Drôme. An ancient village whose houses he and several of his followers
had started to renovate in the mid-1920s, Mirmande was perfectly suited to artists
seeking a rustic ambience for their modern sensibilities. As Lock has observed:
231
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 3: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Portrait of Lucie Beynis, 1929, Paris, oil on canvas
on hardboard, 79.7 x 64.5 cm. Purchased 1965, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney,
© Grace Crowley Estate. Photo: Diana Panuccio, AGNSW.
232
Missionaries of Modernism
The metropolitan call for a ‘return to order’ made at the end of the First World War had
a nationalist rural counterpart in the ‘return to the earth.’ A renewed sense of national
identity included a revival in appreciation of France’s medieval history; a regeneration
of the machine-damaged soul was thought possible through immersion in nature, away
from the machine-made world.
It was in the broader context of this modernist withdrawal from the city that Lhote
was emotionally moved by his first sight of the magnificent village of Mirmande in
1925. Many of its picturesque stone buildings date back to the 13th century; they wrap
around a hill to create a spectacular pyramidal form capped by the gothic Church of
Sainte-Foy and its tower and belfry.
Besides the village’s medieval associations, Lhote was particularly attracted by the
formal geometric relationships between the pyramidal village, the land and the sky –
between the solid and the vaporous (Lock 2017:44).
Lhote described Mirmande as one of “those complex motifs where the mountain,
forest, plain and village are in accord” (Lhote 1943:12/Adams 2004:20). Its pyramidal cluster of stone houses, rising up in blocky planes to the apex of the church
tower, made it a fitting subject for cubist exercises. It was thus an ideal location
for discussing with his students the long tradition of “emblematic mountain and
village views” from Mantegna and Bellini through El Greco and Cézanne to Picasso’s 1909 compositions at Horta de San Juan that led into his Analytical Cubist
period (Lock 2017:44).
In August 1928, Black, Crowley and Dangar, together with an Australian
friend, Isabel Huntley, attended the second of the annual summer schools that
Lhote had started to conduct at Mirmande the year before. It was a defining experience for all, with Black later describing it as the most productive part of her two
years in Europe. On a postcard to her family she noted the diversity of the student
group and the accommodation that Lhote’s studio assistant, Nicolas Poliakoff,
found for everyone among the 300 residents in the village:
There are a party of twenty [students] who have meals together at the hotel, & are
scattered about in sundry rooms through the village. The Lhotes have their own house.
There are 5 American women, two American boys; four Australians Anne, Smudge
[Crowley], Isabel & myself; one Irishman, one Pole, three French girls and one man,
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
two Turkish girls, Madame Berti (Italian). They are a very nice lot (Black/Lock
2017:45).
The summertime had its sociable aspects. The students picnicked and painted in
groups and also visited nearby medieval settlements like the pottery village of
Cliousclat, later to become significant to Dangar’s working life in France. They
dined together at the Café Bert and joined in the evening theatrical entertainments
organised by Lhote in his studio. But the serious focus for everyone was the depiction of Mirmande itself. For the Australians, this task was a further challenge
to their Sydney training.
In his later book Treatise on Landscape Painting, which Crowley said he
was working on at that time, Lhote described Cézanne’s technique of passage as
“spreading in some way by the side of the object a value which is borrowed from
it” (Lhote 1950:18/Adams 2004:21). The spatially ambiguous effect of passage
was a problem that the women tried to negotiate when they set up their easels in
different positions downhill from the village. In her view of Mirmande (Fig. 4)
Crowley arranged the landscape in facets that moved vertically up the picture
plane, wanting it to be “like a solid piece of sculpture, therefore my palette must
be severe, earth colours where possible:”
The hill which had refused to become solid I thought of now as a sphere, trees pointing
up to the church on top of the hill were cylinders, the buildings cubes. I found too that
if I emphasised certain salient points by a geometric shape and “lost” the other side
that worked too. The grass was not ALL the same colour. I tried to keep all the different
gradations into “shapes,” geometric if possible (Crowley 1975:13).
Upon Crowley’s completion of her work, Lhote generously implied a comparison
to El Greco and indeed his own paintings of the Spanish hill town by exclaiming
“Tolède!” (Crowley 1975:13)
Dangar’s version, known as Mirmande, La Drôme, converted the hilly contours and shadows into a series of diagonal movements across the picture plane.4
Viewing the village from a low vantage point, she directly referenced a number
4
234
Dangar’s Mirmande, La Drôme, 1928, is illustrated in Adams, 2004:94-95 plate 2.
Missionaries of Modernism
Fig. 4: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Mirmande, 1928, Mirmande, oil on canvas, 81.0 x
100.5 cm. Bequest of Grace Crowley 1981, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Art
Gallery of South Australia.
of Lhote’s stylistic mannerisms in the details of her landscape, but unlike her
companions, she further rusticised the scene by adding the narrative elements of a
shepherdess and her flock. Black’s approach was the flattest and most reductive of
the three. Like Dangar she firmly engineered her composition into a strongly delineated, diagonally tilted geometry of ascending forms (Fig. 5). Their compositional differences notwithstanding, all three artists avoided random visual effects
and suppressed their individual perceptions in deference to Lhote’s objectified
aesthetic.
Crowley and Dangar had familiarised themselves with Lhote’s rules of landscape composition well before the trip to Mirmande. During their first year with
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 5: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Mirmande, 1928, Mirmande, oil on canvas, 60.0 x 73.8
cm. Elder Bequest Fund 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
him in 1927 they sent a fervent summary of his doctrine to their student friends
in Sydney:
The more you understand the greater laws which govern nature, the more profound
will be your work. There is a secret order which philosophers have found to be numerically the same which governs all clouds, rocks, trees, etc. You all know the divine
proportion which the architect searches and employs (a long explanation of how to find
the section d’or of any canvas) and time will not be wasted in finding this perfect ...
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Learn to work by the geometry, the numbers ... Work with your intellect more and let
your eyes have a holiday. (Crowley/Dangar 1927; Adams 2004:20).5
In the physical texture of Mirmande’s stone walls the women could have observed
the fossilised shells that were the natural evidence of the logarithmic spiral at the
root of classical proportions like the Golden Section. As well as mentioning it in
their correspondence, their awareness of this traditional geometry was evident in
the compositional divisions that Crowley employed in her paintings. Indeed she
later made the mathematics of the section d’or a diagrammatic exercise for her students in Sydney. Through Lhote, Crowley also became aware of Jay Hambidge’s
Dynamic Symmetry, a popular American system of design that was similarly based
on classical ratios. In his Treatise on Landscape Lhote acknowledged Hambidge’s
theories alongside other more rarified analytical texts including Elements de la construction picturale (also titled The elements of pictorial construction), a complex
treatise published in Paris in 1932 by the expatriate Australian Cubist J. W. Power,
who was then active in Paris as an exhibiting member of Abstraction-Création.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Lhote did not push the plasticity of pictorial construction to its limits of geometric abstraction. Rather he retained his thematic ties to the French salon tradition of easel painting. That sensibility informed
Crowley’s Girl with goats (Fig. 6). Based on sketches she made of local peasant
girls at Mirmande, this work was a bucolic evocation of country life that gently
classicised the region’s rustic character. Crowley gave the composition a rhythmic
quality, accentuating and negating the spatial progressions between her flattened
shapes to achieve a curvilinear movement across the picture plane. Acknowledging Lhote’s interest in painters like Poussin, Crowley imbued this work with a soft
Arcadian mood that was also indicative of the interwar ruralism in modern French
painting. After Mirmande, Crowley and Black travelled and painted independently
before reuniting for a further year at the Académie Lhote. In early 1929 Crowley
glimpsed the public success she had always sought when two paintings, including
Girl with goats, were exhibited alongside Lhote, Lipchitz, Léger and other Cubists
in the breakaway Salon des Artistes Français Indépendants. She was mentioned in
5
Crowley/Dangar, “Jottings from a Sketchbook Abroad,” Undergrowth (November-December
1927) no pagination.
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 6: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Girl with goats, 1928, Mirmande, oil on canvas, 54.4
x 73.4 cm. Presented by the National Gallery Society of Victoria 1967, National Gallery of
Victoria, Melbourne, © National Gallery of Victoria.
several reviews, with one American critic deeming her work equal to Lhote’s (New
York Herald 1929).6
Without the family financial support enjoyed by her companions, Dangar parted from Crowley in Italy and took a ship to Sydney in late 1928 to resume her
former teaching job with Julian Ashton. However, once she was back there she
felt herself alienated by her former surroundings. Ashton’s hostility to her new
European values could be gauged by his public attack on modern art at a Society
of Artists exhibition in Sydney in September 1929, where he described it as “the
scum rising to the surface of the melting pot as a result of turmoil caused by the
6
238
“French ‘Independents’ Give First Show of Paintings,” New York Herald (9 February 1929).
Press cutting in Art Gallery of New South Wales: Grace Crowley Papers/Adams, 2004:21
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war” (Sydney Morning Herald 1929; Adams 2004: 24).7 Dangar responded by initiating her own classes in her studio in Bridge Street, Sydney. Advertising herself
in Undergrowth as the holder of a Teacher’s Certificate from the Académie Lhote
(Undergrowth 1929; Adams 2004:25),8 she launched Australia’s first independent
school based on Lhote’s methods.
The spirited ambition that initially accompanied Dangar’s return to Australia
was evident in an idealistic, manifesto-like statement that she published in Undergrowth in early 1929. Emulating both Lhote and the Parisian esprit nouveau, she
heralded a modern age of “scientific law and order” where “the real artists of today
are those who through research have learned to express the elements of proportion and rhythm as employed in the machinery of our times, whose every part fits
perfectly to the whole, and has its special use” (Dangar 1929/Adams 2004: 23).
In the course of her argument Dangar claimed that painting “got its birth in architecture.” She spoke of the wall as the starting point of art, upon which the other
plastic elements were developed. This had been a common idea among French
painters since the Symbolists, and Lhote himself had analysed the wall-like structures of pre-Renaissance art (Lhote n.d.: 5/Adams 2004: 68). But as a trace of Dangar’s sources, it is notable that the wall was also the main premise behind Albert
Gleizes’ concept of the tableau-objet, which he discussed in La Peinture et ses lois:
Ce qui devait sortir du Cubisme, a 1923 essay he republished as a book in 1924
(Gleizes 1924/1923). Dangar had acquired a copy after admiring what she called
“three large astounding pictures” by Gleizes in the 1928 Salon des Tuileries in Paris. She later claimed that these works had filled her with “a perfect satisfaction …
the same peace for the heart that I feel in front of a medieval cathedral or the wall
painting of the same period” (Dangar 1949/Brooke 2001:134/Adams 2004:23).
Gleizes had been one of the intellectual leaders of the early Cubist avant-garde
in Paris, but the works that caught Dangar’s attention related to the flattened style
of Synthetic Cubism that he developed in the 1920s. His writing of La Peinture et
ses lois had been prompted by his need to systematise his thoughts about his new
work when he was asked for lessons by two former students of Lhote, the Irish
artists Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone. For Dangar, the issues he addressed in the
7
8
“‘Modernist Art’. Mr Ashton’s Denunciation,” Sydney Morning Herald (12 September 1929).
Business notice, Undergrowth (July-August 1929): no pagination.
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
resulting book promised a deeper interpretive meaning to her existing fascination
for “the Primitives.” Gleizes linked Cubism to a cyclical time-frame that extended
back to the early evolution of Western Christian art up to the period of Cimabue
and Duccio. He used his idea of a medieval “return” to argue against the modern
period, which he accused of perpetuating the secular crisis precipitated by the Renaissance. In the early Christian epochs, he maintained, plastic principles were as
important as natural forms, with the two combining in a duality of the spiritual and
material. In effect, Gleizes repositioned late Cubism as an anti-modernist modern
art, religiously resistant to la grande ville and other manifestations of industrialised
society. In all such respects, his critical values of the interwar years were diametrically opposed to Lhote’s comfortably cosmopolitan art and personal manner.
Finding Gleizes’ ideas difficult, Dangar wrote to Crowley and Black in Paris,
asking them to find out more. They approached the artist and had lessons with him
in Paris before he went south for the summer. Some months later Crowley met
up with Gleizes again at his country studio overlooking the Rhône in the village
of Serrières, Ardèche. There she had further instruction with Robert Pouyaud, a
young Parisian who in 1927 had become the founding member of Moly-Sabata,
an art colony established by Gleizes across the river in the village of Sablons,
Isère. When Crowley told Gleizes of her friend’s interest in him in Sydney, he
immediately proposed that she join him. An ensuing exchange of telegrams led
to Dangar quitting everything to return to France, and in March 1930 she joined
the small number of Gleizes’ disciples living in Moly-Sabata, where she remained
until her death in 1951.
In response to Gleizes’ instruction, Crowley and Black made separate series
of gouaches that explored the diagrammatic system published in La Peinture et
ses lois. This was a set of formal sequences governing the diagonal placement of
geometric planes in accordance with two movements that Gleizes called translation and rotation. Overlapping and intersecting planes were pushed from side to
side, then inverted and intersected to make an abstract arrangement described as
a simultaneous movement of translation and rotation around the central axis. The
interlocking planes were spatial and dynamic while retaining the overall compositional flatness. Crowley later explained the difference between Lhote and Gleizes
as a contrast between the spatial demands of representation and abstraction. One
accommodated mimetic concerns, whereas the other adhered rigorously to the
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picture plane: “Lhote seemed loath to leave the visual world around him, and like
Cézanne made a compromise between the object seen and the wall (the two dimensional picture plane). Gleizes began with the wall and insisted that one never
forgot it” (Crowley, 1978/Adams 2004:25).
At Moly-Sabata, Dangar’s hopes of becoming a studio assistant to Gleizes were
dashed when it became clear she had instead been recruited into a utopian experiment, a “convent” where metropolitan artists could rediscover la terre and join in
a cultural renewal based on the revitalisation of the region’s agrarian and artisanal
practices. Initially Moly-Sabata’s rules encouraged non-individualised communal
labour, a point demonstrated in a 1932 photograph showing Dangar stencilling a
pochoir based on one of Gleizes’ compositions. Displayed around her were examples of the community’s other art and craft activities, as well as teaching diagrams
demonstrating Gleizes’ principles of translation and rotation (Fig. 7).
Their joint production of Gleizes’ pochoirs provided Pouyaud and Dangar with
some modest income, but when he decided to quit Moly-Sabata and that work finished, Pouyaud urged Dangar to support herself through pottery. She apprenticed
herself to several local village potteries, firstly at the Poterie Clovis Nicolas, at
St-Désirat, Ardèche, in 1930-31, and from 1932 under Jean-Marie Paquaud at the
Poterie Bert, Roussillon, Isère. Over the years she also made increasing use of the
pottery at Cliousclat that she first visited during the Mirmande summer school in
1928. As well as revitalising the vernacular styles of the Rhône region, Dangar
turned her pottery into a populist affirmation of Gleizes’ Cubism. Her decorated
plates rendered his medievalist religious imagery in a cursive style that extended
the cubist design into patterns of arches, interlocking circles and Celtic spirals, as
in her several versions of Virgin with child surrounded by angels. Her energetic
artisanal plates became Moly-Sabata’s collective emblem of spiritual exaltation,
an exuberant alternative to the precise, classically proportioned geometry the
women had studied under Lhote (Fig. 8).
The passion with which Dangar adopted Gleizes’ values caused tension between Crowley and herself, with each defending their respective allegiances to
their two Cubist teachers. The differences they saw in Lhote and Gleizes reflected
a broader contest between classicism and organicism in French cultural theory.
Where the Cartesian order that Crowley had liked in Lhote’s teaching was broadly
reflective of France’s Latin cultural heritage, Gleizes’ sources aligned Cubism
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 7: Anne Dangar making pochoirs at Moly-Sabata, c. 1931, Art Gallery of South Australia: Dorrit Black Archives, Adelaide.
with the identity politics of Celtism. The women also responded differently to
Lhote himself. While Crowley had found inspiration in his analyses of artists like
Ingres, Dangar preferred Lhote when he departed from such models and spoke
of the early Italian “Primitives” or African art, of which he was a noted collector.
Simplicity was the key to her pictorial sensibility, then as later, and her interest
in pre-Renaissance and non-classical art was among the factors that enabled her
to traverse the Cubist teachings of Lhote and Gleizes and enter the latter’s sphere
of influence.
Dangar’s decision to join Moly-Sabata meant that the responsibility fell upon
Black and Crowley to become the principal bearers of Lhote’s teachings in Australia. Both had come back to Sydney around the same time as Dangar’s departure.
In 1931 Black launched the Modern Art Centre in Margaret Street, Sydney, not
far from where Dangar had run her small studio school. The strength of Lhote’s
inspiration was evident in the pioneering ambition of the Modern Art Centre. It
was the first art gallery to be run by a woman in Australia, and the first Australian
art institution to have the word “modern” in its title. The centre featured a permanent display of modern art and provided studio spaces for artists. It was also home
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Missionaries of Modernism
Fig. 8: Dangar, Anne (1885-1951), Virgin with child surrounded by angels, not dated, glazed
earthenware, 45.6 x 4.0 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Photo: Susan Paull
1991.
to a regular sketch club, and offered tuition in drawing, painting, design, linocut
printmaking, and art appreciation. It hosted eleven exhibitions by its artists over
eighteen months, beginning in 1932 with a group show entitled Progressive Art.
Crowley worked with Black on the development of the Modern Art Centre’s program before moving to nearby premises in George Street, Sydney to commence
243
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
her independent studio school in partnership with another Australian painter, Rah
Fizelle. This operated from 1932 to 1937. The figure-based classes in both the
Modern Art Centre and the Crowley-Fizelle School were modelled on the Académie Lhote, with some elements of Gleizes’ influence as well.
In contrast to her Parisian portraits, Crowley’s Miss Gwen Ridley (Fig. 9),
painted on her family’s rural property in 1930 shortly after her return to Australia,
departed from Lhote’s characteristic use of tonal transitions to merge the figure
into the pictorial space. Instead, by placing the main structural forms parallel to
the picture plane, Crowley gave an icon-like framing to the young woman. The
portrait thus combined Lhote’s conventions with the more symmetrical, wall-like
qualities that she had observed during her brief contact with Gleizes the year
before. The resulting work was the first cubist portrait to be painted in Australia.
At the same time Black painted The Bridge, a harbour scene that came to be regarded as the first Australian cubist landscape (Fig.10). Here she similarly blended
the influences of Lhote and Gleizes in her view of the two sides of Sydney’s new
Harbour Bridge under construction. Observing the scene from across the water at
Balls Head Reserve, Black matched the modernity of her pictorial language with the
mechanical drama of the growing steel arch that was then the most potent symbol of
modern progress in Australia. To accentuate the dynamism of the subject, she introduced a circular movement into the composition and gave it a temporal dimension
through a sideways progression from dawn to dusk, evocative of Gleizes’ notions
about the continuity and simultaneity of time. Lhote’s influence was most evident in
the use of fragmented planes and shadowlines to organise the pictorial space, while
the masted ship was also reminiscent of Lhote’s views of the seaport in his home
city of Bordeaux. With some hints of the simplified forms she had developed in her
linocuts under Claude Flight in London, The Bridge was her declaration of the progressive art that Black wanted to give to Australia.
In France, Dangar’s output as a painter declined as she gave more time to her
pottery and the children’s art classes that she conducted at Moly-Sabata. Materially her life there was difficult. Her Australian friends provided support, acquiring
her pottery and sending other forms of assistance. After visiting her at MolySabata in 1934, Black incorporated one of Dangar’s cubist decorated milk jugs
in her Still Life with jug and ladle (Fig. 11), a domestic study whose diagonal
placement of planes once again referenced Lhote. But among Dangar’s greatest
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Fig. 9: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Miss Gwen Ridley, 1930, Glen Riddle, Barraba, New
South Wales, oil on canvas on board, 72.0 x 53.0 cm. Purchased 1995 with assistance of
South Australian Government Grant, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
legacies were the long letters she wrote on a regular basis to numerous correspondents in Australia and France. Those that she sent to Crowley often spoke of
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 10: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), The Bridge, 1930, Sydney, oil on canvas on board,
60.0 x 81.0 cm. Bequest of the artist 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
their shared time with Lhote, but primarily they chronicled the artistic activities
of Gleizes and his circle, with her anecdotes punctuated by excited explanations
of Gleizes’ latest exercises and theories. Her own absorption of his technique of
colour modulation, which became a frequent discussion point in her letters about
Gleizes’ work, could be seen in her Gouache of 1936 (Fig. 12), a composition
with three intersecting discs whose circular bands were inflected by short patches
of tonally even colour that Gleizes called cadences. These sequences of prismatic
and blended colours accentuated the radiating, rotational movement that Gleizes
had linked to the pictorial rhythms in early Christian art, which he saw as the abstract key to the movement of time and the Universe itself.
The universalism in Gleizes’ teachings meant that his group absorbed design
sources as disparate as Archaic Greek, Tibetan, Pre-Columban and Celtic European art. To this set of references Dangar later added North African art and – at
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Fig. 11: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Still life with jug and ladle, c. 1935, Adelaide, oil
on canvas on composition board, 50.5 x 40.5 cm. Gift through the Gallery Foundation
Collectors Club 2013, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
the end of her life – Australian Aboriginal art. The Moly-Sabatans viewed such
sources syncretically, attributing to them intrinsic spiritual qualities that tran247
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 12: Dangar, Anne (1885-1951), Gouache, 1936, Moly-Sabata, Sablons, Isère,
gouache on paper, image 33.0 x 27.0 cm, sheet 35.0 x 28.9 cm. Purchased 2002, National
Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
scended cultural differences. Dangar took this way of seeing with her when she
was assigned to Morocco in 1939 as a French Government advisor to the artisanal
potteries in Fès. Far from trying to modernise or change the local styles of production, she affirmed the traditional methods and the beauty of their Islamic geom248
Missionaries of Modernism
etry. After her return to France at the outbreak of war she continued to express her
admiration for the artisanship she had observed there. In 1943, while helping a
village school project that celebrated France’s overseas colonies, she produced a
series of designs in homage to Moroccan potters (Fig.13). In her Deux Morocains,
oriental features were subsumed into a Gleizes-inspired dual concentric composition evoking the twin spheres of spirit and matter. But as she did in other later
figurative works, Dangar tended to revert to the style of her Lhote period in her
descriptive depictions of the potters themselves.
In Australia, Dorrit Black eventually found her individual strength in a solid
form of realism that took her further than the other women from either Cubist
teacher. Following the closure of the Modern Art Centre in late 1933, she moved
to Adelaide in South Australia, where she developed a regional style of landscape
painting imbued with organic metaphors of a living earth. Typifying her later work
was Coast road, of 1942 (Fig.14). Here the structural power she had previously
demonstrated in her views of Mirmande and Sydney’s new bridge was applied to
the dynamic energy of a road carved into the swelling coastal topography of the
Fleurieu Peninsula. Black counterbalanced the foreground curves with successive
horizontal lines of the sea, mountains and distant sky. In her later work, The olive
plantation of 1946 (Fig. 15) her realism was fully vitalist in manner. A hillside of
olive trees near her Adelaide home took on the character of a breathing organism,
its curving patterns as tangible as body scarifications or the ridges of clay formed
during the turning of a pot. Black was by then a teacher at the South Australian
School of Art, where her ideas were later compared by Jeffrey Smart, a student who
became a significant urban realist based in Italy, to “a shot of adrenalin” (Smart/
Lock, 2017:100). In 1951 a road accident cut short her life, not long after Dangar’s
death from an illness exacerbated by the hardships she had endured over so many
years at Moly-Sabata.
In Sydney, Grace Crowley continued her commitment to modernism as a formally disciplined studio practice. While still working from the model, her work
moved beyond Lhote’s representational methods towards a more structural and
inflected analytical style. After the closure of the Crowley-Fizelle School in 1937,
she formed an artistic partnership with Ralph Balson, an Australian painter who
had known all three of the women since the 1920s, and who had been the third
exhibitor at the Modern Art Centre after Crowley and Black. Working together in
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 13: Dangar, Anne (1885-1951), Deux Marocains, 1943, Moly-Sabata, Sablons, Isère,
gouache on cardboard, 68.0 x 44.0 cm. Purchased 2015, Art Gallery of South Australia,
Adelaide.
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Missionaries of Modernism
Fig. 14: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Coast road, 1942, Aldinga and Adelaide, oil on composition board, 45.5 x 55.0 cm. d’Auvergne Boxall Bequest Fund 1989, Art Gallery of
South Australia, Adelaide.
increasing isolation from the wider Sydney art scene, Crowley and Balson developed a pure form of geometric abstraction, which they explored from the early
1940s into the mid-1950s. Crowley’s Abstract painting of 1952 (Fig. 16) typified
this long phase in their work with its carefully measured geometric relationships
and effects of overlapping translucency masterfully achieved with solid colours.
Crowley died in Sydney in 1979, having lived to see her achievements and
those of her pioneering companions recognised in Australia. The marginalisation
that the women had often felt during the most transformative years of their careers
was finally rectified by the historical acknowledgment of their role in disseminating modern theory and practice in their home country. For Dangar there was the
additional recognition in France of her special place in the 20th century revival
of village pottery. The common factor for all three was the purposefulness with
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 15: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), The olive plantation, 1946, Magill, Adelaide, oil on
canvas, 63.5 x 86.5 cm. Bequest of the artist 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
which they had defined their own destinies. Each was as decisive as the other in
their journeys from periphery to centre and back again. Through them, the values
we associate with urbane Parisians like André Lhote or the more arcane Albert
Gleizes became unusually distinct features of Australia’s 20th century artistic
heritage.
References
Black, Dorrit, “Account of travel and work, 1927–29” in Lock: Dorrit Black: Unseen
Forces, 2017:36 & 217.
Black, Dorrit, postcard to her family from Mirmande, August 1928. Art Gallery of South
252
Missionaries of Modernism
Fig. 16: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Abstract painting, 1952, Sydney, oil on composition
board, 61.2 x 90.8 cm. Bequest of the artist 1981, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,
© National Gallery of Victoria
Australia: Dorrit Black Papers. Quoted in Lock, Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, 2017:
45.
Crowley, Grace, “Letters from Abroad: Learning in Paris,” Undergrowth (May-June
1927): no pagination. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:17-18.
Crowley, Grace, letter from Paris, 26 May 1927, in “Letters from Abroad,” Undergrowth
(October-November 1927): no pagination. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004: 17.
Crowley, Grace, “A Personal View – the Student Years” in Janine Burke, Australian
Women Artists: One Hundred Years 1840-1940, Melbourne: Ewing and George Paton
Galleries, 1975, 12-13.
Crowley, Grace, letter to Bruce Adams, 20 June 1978. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism,
2004:25.
Crowley, Grace, notes to Bruce Adams, 1973. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:18.
Crowley, G., Dangar, A., “Jottings from a Sketchbook Abroad,” Undergrowth (NovemberDecember 1927) no pagination/Adams 2004:20.
253
Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Dangar, Anne, “The House with Blue Shutters,” Undergrowth (July-August 1926): no
pagination. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:16.
Dangar, Anne, “Some things that Lhote said today,” notebook entry, 27 May 1927. Art
Gallery of New South Wales: Grace Crowley Papers, Sydney. Quoted in Adams:
Rustic Cubism, 2004:18.
Dangar, Anne, “To-Day”, Undergrowth (January-February 1929): no pagination. Quoted
in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:23.
Dangar, Anne, letter to Dom Angelico Surchamp, 10 October 1949, in Lettres à la Pierrequi-Vire, 88. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:15.
Dangar, Anne, “Notes for classes given in Moly-Sabata,” August 1949. Quoted in
Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century, New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2001, 134; and in Adams, Rustic Cubism: 2004:23.
Gleizes, Albert, La Peinture et ses lois: Ce qui devait sortir du Cubisme, Paris, 1924. First
published in La Vie des lettres et des arts (March 1923).
L.R., “Farewell in a Garden,” Undergrowth (January-February 1926): no pagination.
Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:16.
Lhote, André, “Extrait de L’Art d’Aujourd’hui,” in André Lhote, Paris: Éditions Albert
Morancé, n.d., 5. Noted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:68.
Lhote, André, “Cubism – A lecture by Lhote to a Women’s University Club in Paris,”
Undergrowth (March-April 1928): no pagination. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism,
2004:19.
Lhote, André, “La Drôme: Mirmande et ses environs,” in Petits Itinéraires à l’usage des
artistes Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1943, 12. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:20.
Lhote, André, Treatise on Landscape Painting, London, Zwemmer, 1950, 18. First
published Paris, Éditions Floury, 1939. Quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:21.
Lock, Tracey, Dorrit Black: Unseen forces, 2017:44.
Ramsay, Isabel, “The Salon of Youth and New Ideas”, The Home, 1 February 1925: 19;
“Cubist Materials at the Salon d’Automne”, The Home, 1 February 1925: 24. Both
quoted in Adams: Rustic Cubism, 2004:16.
Smart, Jeffrey, quoted in Lock, Dorrit Black: Unseen Forces, 2017:100.
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Missionaries of Modernism
List of Illustrations
Fig. 1: The staff and students of the Académie Lhote, Paris c.1927. Anne Dangar is underneath Lhote’s elbow, with Grace Crowley to her left in the row below. Dorrit joined
them there in 1928. Private archive, France © ADAGP.
Fig. 2: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Composition study, 1928, Paris, oil on canvas, 54.0 x
65.0 cm. Private collection.
Fig. 3: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Portrait of Lucie Beynis, 1929, Paris, oil on canvas
on hardboard, 79.7 x 64.5 cm. Purchased 1965, Art Gallery of New South Wales,
Sydney, © Grace Crowley Estate. Photo: Diana Panuccio, AGNSW.
Fig. 4: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Mirmande, 1928, Mirmande, oil on canvas, 81.0 x
100.5 cm. Bequest of Grace Crowley 1981, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide,
© Art Gallery of South Australia.
Fig. 5: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Mirmande, 1928, Mirmande, oil on canvas, 60.0 x 73.8
cm. Elder Bequest Fund 1940, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Fig. 6: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Girl with goats, 1928, Mirmande, oil on canvas,
54.4 x 73.4 cm. Presented by the National Gallery Society of Victoria 1967, National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, © National Gallery of Victoria.
Fig. 7: Anne Dangar making pochoirs at Moly-Sabata, c. 1931, Art Gallery of South
Australia: Dorrit Black Archives, Adelaide.
Fig.8: Dangar, Anne (1885-1951), Virgin with child surrounded by angels, not dated,
glazed earthenware, 45.6 x 4.0 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Photo:
Susan Paull 1991.
Fig. 9: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Miss Gwen Ridley, 1930, Glen Riddle, Barraba, New
South Wales, oil on canvas on board, 72.0 x 53.0 cm. Purchased 1995 with assistance
of South Australian Government Grant, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Fig. 10: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), The Bridge, 1930, Sydney, oil on canvas on board,
60.0 x 81.0 cm. Bequest of the artist 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Fig. 11: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Still life with jug and ladle, c. 1935, Adelaide, oil on
canvas on composition board, 50.5 x 40.5 cm. Gift through the Gallery Foundation
Collectors Club 2013, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Fig. 12: Dangar, Anne (1885-1951), Gouache, 1936, Moly-Sabata, Sablons, Isère, gouache
on paper, image 33.0 x 27.0 cm, sheet 35.0 x 28.9 cm. Purchased 2002, National
Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
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Bruce Adams, Tracey Lock
Fig. 13: Dangar, Anne (1885-1951), Deux Marocains, 1943, Moly-Sabata, Sablons,
Isère, gouache on cardboard, 68.0 x 44.0 cm. Purchased 2015, Art Gallery of South
Australia, Adelaide.
Fig. 14: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), Coast road, 1942, Aldinga and Adelaide, oil on composition board, 45.5 x 55.0 cm. d’Auvergne Boxall Bequest Fund 1989, Art Gallery of
South Australia, Adelaide.
Fig. 15: Black, Dorrit (1891-1951), The olive plantation, 1946, Magill, Adelaide, oil on
canvas, 63.5 x 86.5 cm. Bequest of the artist 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia,
Adelaide.
Fig. 16: Crowley, Grace (1890-1979), Abstract painting, 1952, Sydney, oil on composition board, 61.2 x 90.8 cm. Bequest of the artist 1981, National Gallery of Victoria,
Melbourne, © National Gallery of Victoria.
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About the Authors and Editors
Bruce Adams
Bruce Adams is an Australian art historian who studied at the University of Sydney
and the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He has taught art history and
theory at art colleges and universities in Australia and has worked across the fields of
art criticism, museum curatorship and freelance exhibition curatorship. His doctoral
research at the University of Sydney in the relationships between Australian art, French
Cubism and the social history of the period formed the basis of his award-winning
book Rustic Cubism: Anne Dangar and the Art Colony at Moly-Sabata (Chicago and
London: University of Chicago Press, 2004)
Dominique Bermann-Martin
Niece of André Lhote. She is depositary of the archives of the painter and ensures the
classification. Bermann-Martin is expert and responsible for the moral right on the
work of André Lhote. She is currently writing the catalogue raisonné of André Lhote’s
painterly work. Amongst her publications are Paulhan-Lhote, Correspondance
1919-1961, Édition établie, annotée et présentée par Dominique Bermann-Martin et
Bénédicte Giusti Savelli, collection Les Cahiers de la NRF, Paris: Gallimard, 2009.
“La collaboration d’André Lhote à La NRF: La critique d’art envisagée par un peintre
dans La place de la NRF dans la vie littéraire du XXème siècle: 1908-1943”, collection
Les Cahiers de la NRF, Les Entretiens de la Fondation des Treilles, Paris: Gallimard,
2009. “Lhote, André”, sous la direction de Claudine Grammont, Tout Matisse, Paris:
Robert Laffont, coll. Bouquins, 2018, p.470.
Vesna Burojević
Vesna Burojević, art history graduate (Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade) is a senior
curator and current director of The Sava Šumanović Art Gallery in Šid (Serbia). She
specialized in the research and interpretation of Serbian painter Sava Šumanović,
which lead to the publication of analytical texts and curation of important exhibitions
dedicated to new interpretations of different aspects and periods of the artist’s opus.
She was chief editor of all publications issued by The Sava Šumanović Art Gallery
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About the Authors and Editors
from 2007 to 2018, and organized the Conference: “The Classical, Modern and
Visionary in the Work of Sava Šumanović” (20 June 2014).
David Burzillo
David Burzillo earned an AB in history and philosophy, an Ed.M in Secondary
Education, and an ALM in History. He has been a high school teacher for thirty-three
years. For the past twenty-eight years he has been a teacher at the Rivers School in
Weston, MA, USA, where he also serves as the school’s archivist. His work as archivist
lead him to discover that The Rivers School, which was founded as an open-air school
in 1915, used the home and land of Caroline Hill as the school’s first campus. This led
him to begin researching her life and career. Besides teaching survey courses in world
history, he also teaches elective courses on Big History, Infectious Disease in History,
Global Environmental History, Empires in History, and the History of Writing. His
research interests focus on Big History, ancient languages and writing systems, and
the relationship of language, culture, and history. He has helped develop curricular
materials for both the Big History Project and the Online World History Project.
Alejandra Ortiz Castañares
Art historian (Bachelor at Università degli Studi di Firenze and a PhD at Universidad
Pablo de Olavide, Seville) and cultural journalist for La Jornada newspaper since
2007 and lately for its cultural supplement, Semanal. She has recently written for the
Treccani Encyclopaedia dell’Arte Contemporanea “Opera”, the entries dedicated to
Mexican art of the XX Century. She has collaborated in various scholarly journals
for the universities of Bologna, Udine, Seville and Mexico. Ortiz is specialized in
20th-century art and focuses on transcultural Latin American–European studies. Her
forthcoming book devoted to Manuel Rodríguez Lozano will be released in April
2020, edited by the Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Fanny Drugeon
Fanny Drugeon, Doctorate in contemporary art history, wrote her thesis on the
relationship between abstraction and the Catholic Church after 1945. Among her
publications, she co-edited L’art actuel dans l’Église (Contemporary Art in Churches,
Ereme, 2012). She is a member of the InTRU research lab at the University of Tours,
and of the Laboratory of Excellence Création, Arts et Patrimoine (Creation, Arts and
258
About the Authors and Editors
Heritage). Her current research includes Parisian cosmopolitanism in the second half
of the 20th century. She co-organized in November 2013 the international colloquium
« Passages à Paris. Artistes étrangers à Paris, de la fin du XIXe siècle à nos jours ».
(Journeys to Paris. Foreign artists in Paris, from the end of the 19th Century to today)
Michele Greet
Michele Greet is Professor of modern Latin American art at George Mason University
and Director of the Art History program. She is also president of the Association
for Latin American Art. Her monograph, Transatlantic Encounters: Latin American
Artists in Paris between the Wars, 1918-1939, came out with Yale University Press in
in 2018. She is co-editor, with Gina McDaniel Tarver, of the anthology Art Museums
of Latin America: Structuring Representation (Routledge: 2018). Her first book,
Beyond National Identity: Pictorial Indigenism as a Modernist Strategy in Andean
Art, 1920-1960 came out with Penn State University Press in 2009.
Mehri Khalil
Mehri Khalil is an Egyptian artist and a doctoral candidate at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Vienna. She explores transcultural influences on art, and more particularly,
Egyptian artists in Paris, which complements her own practice and research interests.
Mehri Khalil has previously worked in museums, schools and consultancies. She
holds a master’s degree in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago (’12) and a bachelor’s degree from the American University in
Cairo (‘09).
Zeynep Kuban
Professor of Architectural History at ITU Istanbul, trained in archaeology and art
history. Her work focusses on three areas: Ancient Architecture, Art and Architecture
of the early 20th century, and the transmission of academic knowledge to non-academic
audiences.
Tracey Lock
Tracey Lock is Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, in
Adelaide Australia. She has curated numerous major exhibitions and has written
five books on Australian art, including the monograph, Unseen Forces: Dorrit Black
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About the Authors and Editors
(2017, revised edition). She has also been the recipient of awards including in 2012
a Churchill Fellowship and in 2017 The University of Sydney’s Power Institute Cité
Internationale des Arts Residency Fellowship. She is presently undertaking a Higher
Degree by thesis on ‘Oceanic Modernism: Australian art and Oceania 1900-1990’ at
the University of Adelaide.
Anna Meister
has been employed at the Stockholm art museum Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde since
1997. She is an Archivist and Librarian, with graduate degrees in both disciplines.
Meister is in charge of the museum archives, including Prince Eugen’s personal
archive, and she is also in charge of the library which contains Prince Eugen’s books,
as well as the books acquired since 1948, when Waldemarsudde became a public art
museum. For many years, Meister has also been involved with the exhibitions of the
museum and has herself been in charge of several of these. She has also contributed to
and been the editor of many exhibition catalogues. Exhibitions that she has worked on
recently include the plein air painting exhibition The Magic of Light (2016), Prince
Eugen 150 Years (2015), Inspiration Matisse! (2014–2015), The Artists’ Colony at
Tyresö (2013) and the textile exhibition Lilli and the Prince (2012).
Karin Sidén
Ph.D., is Associate Professor in Art History at Uppsala University and Director
General at Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde since 2012. She was formerly Director
of Research at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Sidén has been responsible for
many research-based exhibitions, both with historic and contemporary Swedish and
other European art, such as The Deluded Eye. Five Centuries of Deception 2008 and
Passions. Art and Emotions through five centuries 2012, both at Nationalmuseum, and
at Waldemarsudde Skagen. An Artist´s Colony 2013, Emil Nolde. Colour Storms 2015,
Joan Miró. Poetry of everyday Life 2017, Form and Colour. André Lhote and Swedish
Cubism 2017 and Paula Modersohn-Becker and the Artist´s Colony at Worpswede
2018. She is the author of several books, exhibition catalogues and articles dedicated
to art and art history and a working member of The Royal Swedish Academy of
Letters, History and Antiquities since 2016.
260
About the Authors and Editors
Jamaleddin Toomajnia
Jamaleddin Toomajnia is currently enrolled as a Ph.D student of Art History at
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. He graduated from the department of painting
at Fine Arts Faculty of Tehran University in 2004, and received his Master of Art from
Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran in 2007. He is writing his Ph.D thesis on “The
Role of cubism in the Modernization of Iranian and Turkish Painting: Jalil Ziapour
and Nurullah Berk”. Jamaleddin Toomajnia is a freelance painter.
Simone Wille
Simone Wille is an art historian and currently directs the research project Patterns
of Trans-regional Trails. The materiality of art works and their place in the modern
era. Bombay, Paris, Prague, Lahore, ca. 1920s to early 1960s, funded by the Austrian
Science Fund (FWF), Project Number P29536-G26. Wille is affiliated with the
University of Innsbruck. Her first book, Modern Art in Pakistan. History, Tradition,
Place was published with Routledge in 2015.
Chinghsin Wu
Chinghsin Wu is the author of Parallel Modernism: Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art
in Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2019). She received her Ph.D. in Art
History from the University of California, Los Angeles and specializes in Japanese
and Chinese art with an emphasis on transnational and cross-cultural perspectives.
She is currently Assistant Teaching Professor of Art History at Rutgers UniversityCamden and has published extensively on modern art in Japan, China, and Taiwan.
261
Amongst the numerous art academies that existed in Paris between the 1920s and
the 1950s, both the liberal as well as the more conservative, the academy of André Lhote (1885-1962), run between 1925 and 1962, was much sought after and
attracted an unprecedented number of international students. Due to the excellent
state of its archive, it is possible today to acknowledge that almost 1,600 students
studied with André Lhote at 18, rue d’ Odessa in Montparnasse over the period of
four decades, as well as at the field academies that he set up in Mirmande (1926),
Gordes (1938) and in Cadiére d’Azur (1948). André Lhote and His International Students is a collection of 13 essays that illuminate the significant way in which André
Lhote, through his teaching, his art practice and writing, was responsible for distributing a specific set of formal and theoretical modernist trends. This book thus
not only pays tribute to an unjustly neglected artist, theoretician and teacher, but
also examines how artists from around the world contributed to and reinterpreted
modernist movements that took place in Paris during this period. André Lhote and
His International Students is an account of a microcosmic version of the cosmopolitan Paris that was shaped by the flow and circulation of thousands of single
artists from around the world.