J. Glass (20th Century) Judaica Abstract Signed and Numbered Print. Depicts a group of Hasidic Jews playing instruments in a swooping surrealist style inspired by Adolf Adler and Marc Chagall. Signed bottom left. Numbered 1/100 bottom middle. Inscribed indistinctly bottom right. 

Overall: 12 1/2 x 16 1/2 in.

Sight: 8 x 11 7/8 in.

#2574. 

The École de Paris (School of Paris) is a term coined in 1925 by art critic André Warnod, said to represent a diverse group of artists, many of Jewish origin from Eastern Europe, who settled in Montparnasse, Paris. Many of these Jewish artists arrived in Paris seeking artistic education and fleeing from persecution. The École de Paris included notable figures such as Marc Chagall, Jules Pascin, Chaïm Soutine, Yitzhak Frenkel Frenel, Amedeo Modigliani, and Abraham Mintchine. Their work often depicted Jewish themes and expressed deep emotional intensity, reflecting their experiences of discrimination, pogroms, and the upheavals of the Russian Revolution. Despite facing xenophobia and criticism from some quarters, these artists played a central role in the vibrant artistic community of Paris, frequenting cafes and communicating in Yiddish, and contributed significantly to its status as the capital of the art world. The School of Paris dispersed following the Nazi occupation of France and the Holocaust, during which countless Jewish artists were murdered or died of disease. Some of the artists, like Chagall, escaped to Israel and the United States. The 1930s saw artists in Tel Aviv and Safed creating works that affirmed their humanity and emotion, often with a dramatic and tragic quality reflective of Jewish experiences. In the latter half of the 20th Century Judaica became a much more popular and important art form on the world stage, as artists around the world sought to capture the Jewish Diaspora in both realistic and abstract representations.