Leaving Paris and Coming Home to Santa Fe with the Rest of the Modernists
I have been meaning to get back to my last day in Paris but my vision quest has been terribly interrupted by life, yes real life. My mission on this trip was to find the Academia Julian (a venerable art school of the late 19th and early 20th century) in Paris. I have read about the Academia for my entire career (and I am not going to tell you how long that has been!). So on this day, I am on a mission, walking, searching, exploring the glorious streets of Paris and hoping to find the now nondescript place, Passage des Panoramas. This place is where the original home of the Academia Julienne was. I have no real street number, just a general location. I have looked at maps and determined a general location, but after all, this amazing school has been gone for almost 50 years now! So I think, what does this old school hold in today’s art society? Where the school of the past is and what does it represent today?
As I traverse the streets, looking around for my destination, I am in awe. This is Paris; old beautiful buildings, glorious history and fashionable people. As I near the address, something makes me pause. I look up and think there is a door way right here on the sidewalk, a large beautiful arched entryway and people walking around as though this is a place of notice, merit, and history. So, I am swept up by the current of energy and I enter this imposing entryway into an old beautiful architectural structure with shops and restaurants. There are also some rather sad empty store fronts and deserted alley ways. But what resonates with me most is the feeling that this is a 500 year old mall beautifully built and breath – taking. I can imagine the previous slices of life and bazaars that took place in this building. The ceiling is made of window panes which allow the natural sun light to filter through and lighten up the building structure of old stone, solid and timely. I am captivated by the display of light coming through the ceiling and realize it was and still is a perfect place to paint, all in pure bright natural light. There is activity with the patrons eating and shopping in the shops in the galleria. Then I partake and it hits me. This is no ordinary building. It is beautifully designed and smells of history and creativity. I look up, and there is my answer, a sign Passage de Panoramas, BAM, BOOM, POW, right there! I have found it, I am home.
This vanished academia (closed in 1968) holds a special place in my heart for several reasons. First of all, women were accepted into this art academie when no other in Paris would take them. It was only here that women could draw women! Another important fact about this school is that many of the New Mexican artists of the early nineteen century (whose works are in my gallery) studied here, taking studio lessons. Imagine this exciting mix taking place in the early 1900’s! These artists were squeezed together in huge dusty rooms learning their craft, excited by the lovely models presented for their study. Their “joy de vivre” is present in their work.
What adventurers these rebels were! They risked their lives crossing the Atlantic on the sailing freighters and ships that had no health standards or safety devices. Many ships were lost at sea.
Joseph Henry Sharp was an important member of this group of artists. Now considered the ‘father’ of the Taos Society of Art, he helped bring this inspired artistic climate to New Mexico with his tales of the beautiful light and scenery of Taos, New Mexico.
He had traveled there with John Hauser a few years before and was smitten. As a result Bert Phillips, Ernest Blumenschein, E.I. Couse and Walter Ufer traveled half way across the world to start the artist colony in this crazy back world of the southwest. Taos and Santa Fe held the answers and the final frontier for many of this group. Their art, recollections of a prior life time have become highly collected and written about in art journals of American history and art.
But back to the moment, I am sad. I don’t want to leave. Did any of them feel this way when they had to say good-bye to Paris?
We will never know.
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