Sue Roe's In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art looks at that early 20th-century bohemian village atop a hillside overlooking Paris. Montmartre inspired many artists with its acrobats, dancers, prostitutes, clowns, cafes, cabarets and the ever-lively Moulin de la Galette. As Roe (The Private Lives of the Impressionists) demonstrates in this captivating work of art history, the "real revolution" of modern art took place there, "quietly and intimately, in the shadow of the windmills."
Roe begins in October 1900, when 19-year-old Pablo Picasso visited the World's Fair in Paris to see the city, the art and his own painting, Last Moments, on display. After trips back and forth to Spain, he moved to Montmartre and established friendships with dealers. The burgeoning iconoclastic atmosphere there challenged him to take risks, and several years later he painted his shocking Les Demoiselles d'Avignon--"nothing like it had ever been seen before." Over the course of a decade, the creative mecca of Montmartre gave birth to many schools of art--Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism--all contributing to the "heady sense of interconnectedness" felt by artists Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Henri Rousseau, Maurice Utrillo, Amedeo Modigliani and Constantin Brâncusi. Others helped: together with her collector brother Leo and her nightly salons, Gertrude Stein had a huge impact, financially and aesthetically, on the artists.
Roe does a terrific job of showing how these painters, as well as fashion designers, dancers, photographers and filmmakers, influenced each other, excited by what they were creating. Like her own book, it was a "dynamic, entertaining drama." --Tom Lavoie, former publisher