Académie de La Palette (), also called Académie La Palette and La Palette, (English: Palette Academy), was a private art school in Paris, France, active between 1888 and 1925, aimed at promoting 'conciliation entre la liberté et le respect de la tradition'.Grace Brockington, Internationalism and the Arts in Britain and Europe at the Fin De Siecle, 2009Walter Sickert, All We Like Sheep, Art News, 14 April 1910, in Anna Gruetzner Robins, Walter Sickert: The Complete Writings on Art, p. 216. And in Grace Brockington, Internationalism and the Arts in Britain and Europe at the Fin De Siecle, p. 35
Early on the Académie de La Palette developed a reputation as a progressive art school.Bruce Altshuler, The avant-garde in exhibition: new art in the 20th century, Abrams, 1994 In 1902, with Jacques-Émile Blanche as director of the academy, the concept had been 'any attempt at imitation are now abandoned' [toute tentative d'imitation étant désormais abandonnée].Jacques-Émile Blanche, Maurice Denis, Correspondence, (1901-1939)
From 1912, when the Cubists Henri Le Fauconnier and Jean Metzinger took over the direction of the school, the role of the Académie de La Palette as the nexus for the avant-garde at the forefront of the Parisian art scene was secured.Academies in Paris, Kubisme.info (Dutch)Mark Antliff, Patricia Dee Leighten, A Cubism Reader: Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914, University of Chicago Press, Aug 1, 2008
History
From 1900 to 1914 many academies were formed in Paris under the direction of well-known established artists, such as the Académie Matisse, Académie Alexander Archipenko, Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Académie Humbert, Académie Ranson, Académie Russe de Peinture et de Sculpture, Académie Vasilieff, and Académie Vitti. These schools had for competition not only each other but those already established academies that had become popular prior to the 1900s such as Académie de La Palette, Académie Julian, Académie Colarossi and the vast École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.Delia Gaze, Concise Dictionary of Women Artists, 2013
According to some sources, the Académie de La Palette was originally located in Montparnasse, Rue de l'Arrivée in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, and may have had as founder the Swiss painter Martha Stettler, linking it to the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, also founded by Stettler. It remains unclear exactly when the academy was founded.
According to another source, the artist Fernand Cormon founded an art school in 1882 by the name of Atelier Cormon, at 10 rue Constance in Paris. In 1888 the academy moved to 104 Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement of Paris where it became known as Académie de La Palette. At that location Eugène CarrièreEugène Carrière, Académie de La Palette became a professor, along with Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.Taylor, E.A. The Studio - Vol 84, No 353, August 1922, London.Claude Dumas, L'Homme et l'espace dans la littérature, les arts et l'histoire en Espagne et en Amérique Latine au XIXe siècle: études, Presses Univ. Septentrion, 1985 At that time artists such as Santiago Rusiñol studied at La Palette under Henri Gervex.William H. Robinson, Jordi Falgas, Carmen Bellon Lord, Foreword by Robert Hughes, Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí, The Cleveland Museum, Yale University Press, 2006
Between 1902 and 1911 Jacques-Émile Blanche directed the academy; his bilingualism attracting many English and North American students seeking exposure to the latest avant-garde tendencies. Under his tutelage instruction was offered in both French and English.Mark Antliff, Patricia Dee Leighten, A Cubism Reader: Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914, University of Chicago Press, Aug 1, 2008 Teachers during the early years included Lucien Simon, Charles Cottet, Georges Desvallières, who co-founded the Salon d'Automne, Edmond Aman-Jean, Lucien Simon, Charles-François-Prosper Guérin, René François Xavier Prinet (1861-1946) and others. According to a notice in the journal La Revue de France et des Pays Français (March–April 1912), Mac Neill had been the director of the school.La Revue de France et des Pays Français (March-April 1912)
In 1905 the Russians Sonia Terk, Elisabeth Iwanowna Epstein and Marie Vassilieff graduated from this academy. Fellow students at La Palette included Amédée Ozenfant, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Roger de La Fresnaye.Stanislaus Von Moos, Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis, 2009Richard R. Brettell, Françoise Forster-Hahn, Duncan Robinson, Janis A. Tomlinson, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century European Drawings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002
At the outset of 1912 the art school relocated to 18 rue du Val-de-Grâce in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.Der Sturm, 20 April 1912. Blue Mountain Project, Princeton University In February, Henri Le Fauconnier was appointed to succeed Jacques-Émile Blanche as chef d'atelier. John Golding, Cubism: A History and an Analysis, 1907-1914, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1988 Le Fauconnier commissioned Jean Metzinger and André Dunoyer de Segonzac as full-time instructors for the morning sessions; Eugène Zak and Jean Francis Auburtin took over in the afternoon. Dunoyer de Segonzac had from 1907 attended the school and worked part-time together with John Duncan Fergusson.
At this time the academy primarily attracted French, Danish and Russian students. Some of the students known to have attended were Marcel Gromaire and Marc Chagall.André de Ridder, Le Fauconnier, L'Art Libre, No. 11, August 15, 1919, p. 120. Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France Though Chagall's studies at La Palette were intermittent and succinct,Michael R. Taylor, Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and his Circle, exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2011 it was there that Chagall frequented artists at the forefront of the Parisian avant-garde. His experimentations at the time centered on Fauvist colors and Cubist construction.Hélène Vincent, Chagall à Paris, in Chagall et l’Avant-Garde Russe, exh. cat., Musée de Grenoble and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2011), 60 His instructors were Le Fauconnier and Metzinger.Aliya Reich, Adrift in Paris: Marc Chagall and the Negotiation of Identity through Painting, 1911-1914, Washington University in St. Louis, January 2012Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall: A Biography, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008
In the fall of 1912 Liubov Popova and Nadezhda Udaltsova enrolled at La Palette following the advice of Alexandra Exter. According to Udaltsova, Jean Metzinger encouraged the students to the visit galleries and salons where Cubist works were exhibited. The price for a half-day classes was 40 francs per month. Metzinger's students at La Palette included Serge Charchoune, Jessica Dismorr, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Varvara Stepanova and Lyubov Popova.
Case histories Lyubov Popova began studying in the studios of Henri Le Fauconnier, Jean Metzinger, and André Dunoyer de Segonzac at the Académie de la Palette in Montparnasse December 1912 at the age of 23. Nadezhda Udaltsova writes in her diaries that Popova's "sketches are not bad except that all her figures are distended". Udaltsova later continues: "L.S. [Popova] is much bolder than I am. Metzinger has already praised her".InCoRM, International Chamber of Russian Modernism, Liubiv Popova, Biography (pdf)Adaskina and Sarabianov, “Liubov Popova”, Amazons of the Avant-Garde, Royal Academy, p. 187 Popova continues her work at La Palette until May, while Udaltsova returned to Moscow around February.
"In November 1912 I went to Paris with Liubov Popova", Udaltsova writes in her memoirs, "Sofia Karentnikova and Vera Petel also travelled with us although they soon returned to Moscow. After looking around, Popova and I began to search for a studio. Our intention had been to work with Matisse but his school was already closed, so we went over to Maurice Denis’s studio. But there we ran into a Red Indian with feathers sitting against a red background and we ran away. Someone then told us about La Palette, the studio of Le Fauconnier. We went there and immediately decided that it was what we wanted… Le Fauconnier, Metzinger and Segonzac used to visit the studio once a week. Le Fauconnier offered pictorial solutions for the canvas while Metzinger spoke of Picasso’s latest accomplishments. That was still the time of classical Cubism without all the vie banale – which first appeared in the form of wallpaper and appliqués in the works of Braque. Le Fauconnier was a ferocious expert and many a student trembled before the canvas. Both Le Fauconnier and Metzinger responded positively to my works and I was so happy when Metzinger told me two weeks later, “Vous avez fait de progrès extraordinaire” [“You have made extraordinary progress”]. How the students looked at me!.In Amazons of the Avant-Garde, p. 343. Another entry in Udaltsova’s diary reads: “Liubov Sergeevna [Popova] understood little of what Le Fauconnier was saying. Everything is broken down into a thousand lines; she has no feel for the plane".D. Sarabianov and N. Adaskina, Liubov Popova, p. 41.
Popova continued working in a Cubist style influenced in particular by Jean Metzinger through 1913.
Joseph Csaky in 1910 won a scholarship in Szeged, giving him enough money to attend l'Académie de la Palette. He wrote of the direction his art had taken during the crucial years, and its relation to La Palette:
"There was no question which was my way. True, I was not alone, but in the company of several artists who came from Eastern Europe. I joined the cubists in the Académie La Palette, which became the sanctuary of the new direction in art. On my part I did not want to imitate anyone or anything. This is why I joined the cubists movement." (Joseph Csaky)
Amédée Ozenfant around 1906 had enrolled in the Académie de la Palette, where he studied under Jacques-Émile Blanche and Charles Cottet.Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Lucy Flint-Gohlke, Thomas M. Messer, Handbook, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Abrams, 1983Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer (1990). On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930. London: Tate Gallery. p. 198. There he befriended Roger de La Fresnaye and André Dunoyer de Segonzac, his fellow students at the time.Judi Freeman. "Ozenfant, Amédée." Grove Art Online. Retrieved 26 November 2012. Aristarkh Lentulov, from 1910, studied under Le Fauconnier both at his private studio and at La Palette. Whilst there, he became acquainted with contemporary French painters such as Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay. After absorbing Fauve and Cubist principles he developed his own unique style of painting with bright colors. After his return to Russia in 1912 he became a major influence on what would become the Russian Cubo-Futurism.Evgeniĭ Fedorovich Kovtu, L'Avant-Garde russe, 200720th century, Avant Garde, fin de siècle, StreetsEvgeniĭ Fedorovich Kovtun (Evgueny Kovtun), Russian Avant-Garde (Art of Century), 2007 Marguerite Thompson Zorach studied briefly with conservative painter Jean Francis Auburtin at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, but was dissatisfied with the conventional style of painting. She enrolled at the more liberal Académie de la Palette where she began experimenting with Fauvism under the instruction of John Duncan Fergusson. During her time abroad, Zorach traveled extensively. She painted more abstractly, developing a style that was completely flat.Joan M. Marte, The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art: Five-volume Set