From June 13 to September 10, 2025, HELENE BAILLY gallery pays tribute to Paris, the capital of the arts, and to the Montparnasse studios where some of the most iconic pages of the School of Paris were written. Curated by Armand Camphuis, the exhibition Montparnasse & the School of Paris: Studio Stories explores these emblematic sites in the history of modern and contemporary art.
La Ruche, the Cité des Artistes, the Villa Vassilieff, the Cité Falguière… These legendary studios shaped the first half of the 20th century. Artists from around the world lived and worked there, forming friendships and rivalries as they shaped modernity. Once a refuge, Montparnasse became the cradle of an iconic generation. Through works by Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Marie Laurencin, Moïse Kisling, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, Ossip Zadkine, and Tsuguharu Foujita, HELENE BAILLY gallery celebrates the School of Paris – its places and its faces.
In dialogue with these icons of modernity, the gallery invites four contemporary artists from the POUSH creative incubator to take over the space: Valentina Canseco, Juliette Minchin, Lisa Ouakil, and Dune Varela. They embody a bold, inspired new generation – a new School of Paris that champions diverse voices, supports women’s artistic creation, and asserts itself as part of the international avant-garde.
From Montparnasse to Aubervilliers, from the School of Paris to today’s contemporary practices, this exhibition highlights the enduring importance of artists’ studios for the Parisian avant-gardes – past and present.
HELENE BAILLY gallery is proud to create this dialogue between two generations, revealing both the ruptures and the shared intuitions that have shaped over a century of artistic creation. From 1900 to 2025, the story of art continues to be written in the studios of Paris.