1880-1929Thelema in Paris

Background · 1902–1903

Académie Colarossi

Gone

Address · 10, rue de la Grande-Chaumière, 75006 Paris

Metro · Vavin (4)

Today · Gone. The academy closed in the 1930s; a restaurant on the ground floor.

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The story

The Académie Colarossi descended from the Académie Suisse, a free studio founded around 1815 on the quai des Orfèvres, on the Île de la Cité. Taken over by the Italian model and sculptor Filippo Colarossi, it moved to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the 1870s (1879 according to Wikipedia). Unlike the École des Beaux-Arts, it admitted women and allowed them to draw from the nude model, male models included. Raphaël Collin, Gustave Courtois and the sculptor Injalbert taught there; Alphonse Mucha gave a course there in 1900. Camille Claudel, Jeanne Hébuterne, Modigliani and Emily Carr were among its students. The street was also home to the Chez Charlotte crèmerie and, from 1904, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

The academy was a fixture of the Anglo-American milieu of Montparnasse that Crowley frequented in 1902-1903. The English painter and photographer Stephen Haweis studied there after the death of his parents, and it was there that he met the young Mina Loy, in 1902 according to one account, in 1903 according to the poet's chronology; they married on 31 December 1903. Haweis later became the photographer of a large part of Rodin's work. According to the description of Tobias Churton's book, it was Gerald Kelly who introduced Haweis to Crowley, at a time when Crowley was moving in Rodin's circle.

Nothing indicates that Crowley himself took classes at Colarossi. As for Moina Mathers, the sources mention her training at the Slade School in London (1883-1886), but not the Académie Colarossi: this point remains to be verified.

The academy closed in the 1930s. At No. 10 a restaurant now occupies the ground floor, while the nearby Académie de la Grande Chaumière still welcomes drawing students; the street retains the atmosphere of a small street of studios near the carrefour Vavin.

People

In the tours

Sources