At the beginning of the last
century, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and other acclaimed
and unknown artists moved to Paris, the art capital of the world. They
learnt to survive in a society that was becoming increasingly polarised,
nationalistic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic. This exhibition and
accompanying publication tells the story of artists in a foreign country
who, despite adverse conditions, had the courage to take art to new
heights. The show is an incredible chance to see the work of the great
modern masters in a new light, and to discover new artists.


Today,
Chagall, Picasso and Mondrian are known as Masters of Modern Art, but
behind their role as artistic pioneers lay struggle - all three, from
different backgrounds, were migrants. In spite of their success and
achievement, they faced the same insurmountable obstacle: they were not
French. Picasso, born in Spain, arrived in Paris penniless, where he
flourished as a creative genius. And yet he remained loyal to his
Spanish roots, and often identified with being 'different', a sentiment
he frequently explored in his work. As a Jewish-Russian in exile,
Chagall faced loneliness, exclusion and outright anti-Semitism. Often
packed with Jewish-Russian imagery like rabbis and synagogues, his
paintings convey a sense of deep nostalgia. In his early years, the
Dutchman Kees van Dongen also encounterd difficulties. He eventually
became one of Paris' celebrated society painters, but in 1906 he
complained that the newspapers consistently portrayed him as the sale étranger, or 'the dirty foreigner'.


The exhibition Chagall, Picasso, Mondrian and Others: Migrant Artists in Paris
shows work of, amongst others: Emmy Andriesse, Karel Appel, Eva Besnyö,
Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, Kees van Dongen, Gisèle Freund, Natalia
Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, Germaine Krull, Wifredo Lam, Jacques
Lipchitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Piet Mondriaan, Marlow Moss, Pablo
Picasso, Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Gino Severini, Jan Sluijters, Chaim
Soutine, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Nicolaas Warb (Sophia Warburg), and Ossip
Zadkine.