Académie Colarossi

life drawing class, 1908

The Académie Colarossi was an art school in Paris founded in the 19th century by the Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi. First located on the Île de la Cité, it moved in the 1870s to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the 6th arrondissement. It closed in the 1930s.

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, the Colarossi school accepted female students and allowed them to draw from the nude male model. Among the female attendees were Jeanne Hébuterne, Modigliani's muse; 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.

In 1910, the progressive Académie appointed the New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins (1869–1947) as its first female teacher. Among its other instructors were the influential French sculptor Jean Antoine Injalbert and the Japanese-influenced painter Raphael Collin.

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 graduates

	Austria	Zofia Albinowska-Minkiewiczowa – Aloys Wach
	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
	Czech Republic	František Bílek – Josef Čapek – Alfons Mucha
	Ecuador	Camilo Egas
	Estonia	Adamson-Eric – Konrad Mägi – Eduard Wiiralt
	Finland	Helene Schjerfbeck – Ellen Thesleff
	France	Hélène de Beauvoir – Camille Claudel – Paul Gauguin – Marcel Gromaire – Jeanne Hébuterne – Jean Lurçat – Claude-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 Lough Thompson
	Poland	Stanisław Jackowski – Alfons Karpiński – Józef Mehoffer – 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
	Spain	Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa
	Sweden	Carl Eldh – Arvid Nyholm – Jenny Nyström – Hanna Pauli
	Switzerland	Fritz Glarner – Oswald Pilloud – Louis Soutter
	Uruguay	Juan José Calandria
	United Kingdom	Lamorna Birch – John Duncan Fergusson – 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 - Sydney Curnow Vosper
	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 – Walt Kuhn – Isamu Noguchi – George Loftus Noyes – Lilla Cabot Perry – Alice Morgan Wright – Stanton Macdonald-Wright – Elenore Plaisted Abbott – Alice Schille – Janet Scudder – Armstrong Sperry – Inga Stephens Pratt Clark – Challis Walker – Mahonri Young

Other students

• Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois
• Camilo Egas
• Paul Haefliger
• Cornelia Ellis Hildebrandt
• Louis Kahan
• Richard E. Miller
• Maurice Prendergast^[1]
• Lucy May Stanton
• Clara Westhoff
• George Grosz

References

Sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Académie Colarossi.

• Edward Halliday, by Ann Compton

Coordinates: 48°50′32″N 2°19′51″E / 48.84222°N 2.33083°E / 48.84222; 2.33083