Académie Colarossi

The Académie Colarossi (1870–1930) was an art school in Paris founded in 1870 by the Italian model and sculptor Filippo Colarossi.^[1] It was originally located on the Île de la Cité, and it moved in 1879 to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the 6th arrondissement. The school closed in the 1930s.

Académie Colarossi
Address
10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière Paris France
Information
School type	art school
Founded	1815
Closed	1930

Academie Colarossi life drawing class, 1908

History

A precursor art school in the same location was the Académie Suisse, founded in 1815.^[2] The former Académie Suisse location on the Île de la Cité was bought by Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi in 1870, and in 1879 it moved to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the 6th arrondissement.^[3][4]

The Académie was established in the 19th century as an alternative to the government-sanctioned École des Beaux Arts that had, in the eyes of many promising young artists at the time, become far too conservative. Along with its equivalent Académie Julian, and unlike the official École des Beaux Arts, the Colarossi school accepted female students and allowed them to draw from the nude male model.^[5]

Around 1879, two salon painters taught the Académie classes, the Japanese-influenced painter Raphaël Collin and French academic-style painter Gustave Courtois.^[1] Among its other instructors were the influential French sculptor, Jean Antoine Injalbert and painter Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret.^[1] In 1893, the progressive Académie appointed the American artist Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley (1860–1958) as its first female teacher.

In 1922 sculptor Henry Moore attended, although not as a student. Moore took life-drawing classes that were open to the general public, paid for with a book of inexpensive tickets. The evening classes were progressively timed – one hour, then 20 minutes, then five minutes, then one – to develop various drawing skills.

The school closed in the 1930s. Around that time, Madame Colarossi burned the priceless school archives in retaliation for her husband's philandering.

Notable students

At Académie Colarossi among the female attendees were german painter Thea Schleusner, Amedeo Modigliani's muse, Jeanne Hébuterne; Scottish Impressionist Bessie MacNicol; Canadian Impressionist Emily Carr; and French sculptor Camille Claudel, who was also a student of Rodin's. Noted also for its classes in life sculpting, the school attracted many foreign students, including a large number from the United States.^[4]

	Austria	Zofia Albinowska-Minkiewiczowa – Aloys Wach
	Australia	Alice Muskett[6]
	Bulgaria	Pascin
	Canada	Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith – Emily Carr – Ralston Crawford – Prudence Heward – George Loftus Noyes – Maurice Prendergast – George Agnew Reid – Boardman Robinson – Marc Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté
	China	Georgette Chen
	Czech Republic	František Bílek – Josef Čapek – Alfons Mucha
	Denmark	Cecilie Dahl
	Ecuador	Camilo Egas
	Estonia	Adamson-Eric – Konrad Mägi – Karl Pärsimägi – Nikolai Triik – Eduard Wiiralt
	Finland	Helene Schjerfbeck – Ellen Thesleff
	France	Hélène de Beauvoir – Camille Claudel – Paul Gauguin – Marcel Gromaire – Jeanne Hébuterne – Jean Lurçat – Émile Schuffenecker – Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen – Fabien Fabiano
	Germany	Karl Albert Buehr – George Grosz – Hans Hofmann – Wilhelm Lehmbruck – Paula Modersohn-Becker
	Greece	Sophia Laskaridou
	Hungary	Emile Lahner – Camilla Koffler (Ylla)
	Ireland	Eileen Gray
	Italy	Romaine Brooks – Amedeo Modigliani
	Israel	Avigdor Stematsky
	Japan	Kume Keiichiro – Seiki Kuroda – Henry Sugimoto
	Lithuania	Jacques Lipchitz
	Norway	Nikolai Astrup – Jean Heiberg – Olaf Gulbransson – Wilhelm Rasmussen – Aage Storstein – Ingebrigt Vik – Gustav Wentzel – Cora Sandel
	New Zealand	Sydney Thompson – Helen Stewart
	Poland	Stanisław Jackowski – Alfons Karpiński – Józef Mehoffer – Mela Muter - Włodzimierz Tetmajer – Max Weber – Stanisław Wyspiański- Eugeniusz Zak
	Romania	Reuven Rubin
	Russia	Gleb W. Derujinsky – Alexander Golovin – Anna Golubkina – Eugene Lanceray – Konstantin Somov – Emil Wiesel- Nicolai Ivanovich Kravchenko – Nikolai Pomansky
	Spain	Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa
	Sweden	Carl Eldh – Arvid Nyholm – Jenny Nyström – Hanna Pauli[1] - Anna Wengberg
	Switzerland	Fritz Glarner – Oswald Pilloud – Louis Soutter – Heini Waser
	Uruguay	Juan José Calandria
	United Kingdom	Lamorna Birch – John Duncan Fergusson – Edward Halliday[7] – Isobel Heath – Richard Jack - Mina Loy – Laura Muntz Lyall – Ottilie Maclaren Wallace – Bessie MacNicol - Cedric Morris – Samuel Peploe – Elizabeth Polunin – Dod Procter – Robert William Service – Stansmore Dean Stevenson - Edith Grace Wheatley - Sydney Curnow Vosper – Amy Krauss
	United States	Lucy Bacon – Cecilia Beaux – Charles Bittinger – Rinaldo Cuneo – Charles Demuth – Eyre de Lanux – Florence Esté – Clara Fasano - Lyonel Feininger – Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller – Marion Greenwood – Elizabeth Orton Jones – Alice De Wolf Kellogg – Walt Kuhn – Jean Mannheim[8] – Isamu Noguchi – George Loftus Noyes – Pauline Palmer — Lilla Cabot Perry – Alice Morgan Wright – Stanton Macdonald-Wright – Elenore Plaisted Abbott – Alice Schille – Janet Scudder – Armstrong Sperry – Inga Stephens Pratt Clark – Adrien Voisin – Challis Walker – Nan Watson — Adele Fay Williams — Mahonri Young

Other students

• Ethel Blanchard Collver
• Rose Connor
• Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois
• Camilo Egas
• Hester Frood^[9]
• Paul Haefliger
• Cornelia Ellis Hildebrandt
• Louis Kahan
• Richard E. Miller
• Georgina Moutray Kyle
• Josephine Muntz Adams
• Maurice Prendergast^[10]
• Lucy May Stanton
• Mary K. Trotter
• Mary Jett Franklin
• Clara Westhoff
• George Grosz
• Clara Miller Burd
• Nora Houston^[11]

See also

• Category:Académie Colarossi alumni

References

1. Thorell, Marge (2018-11-13). Karin Bergoo Larsson and the Emergence of Swedish Design. McFarland. pp. 43, 166. ISBN 978-1-4766-7406-3.
2. Ayral-Clause, Odile (2019-08-09). Camille Claudel: A Life. Plunkett Lake Press.
3. "Académie Colarossi". Artist Biographies. Artist Biographies Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
4. Greet, Michele (2018). Transatlantic Encounters: Latin American Artists in Paris Between the Wars. Yale University Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-300-22842-7.
5. "Art Term – Académie Colarossi". Tate. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
6. Edgar, Suzanne; Green, Dorothy (1986). "Muskett, Alice Jane (1869–1936)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
7. Compton, Ann (1997). Edward Halliday: Art for Life, 1925-1939. Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies. Liverpool University Press. pp. 10, 44. ISBN 9780853239727.
8. Hughes, Edan Milton (1986). Artists in California, 1786-1940. Hughes Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0961611200.
9. "Hester Frood". The British Museum. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
10. Mathews, Nancy Mowll (1993). Charles Prendergast. Williamstown, MA.: Williams College Museum of Art. p. 10. ISBN 0-913697-16-8.
11. https://norahouston.org/about/ About Nora Houston - Nora Houston Foundation

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