Académie Colarossi

The Académie Colarossi was a private art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, founded in the second half of the nineteenth century by the Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi. It arose as a democratic alternative to the official and conservative École des Beaux-Arts: tuition was inexpensive, foreign students were welcomed, and life-drawing classes were available daily. The academy's particular significance lay in being among the first to admit women artists and, unlike the state school, to allow them to draw from the nude male model on equal terms with men. Colarossi's studios attracted numerous artists from around the world, including Scandinavian, American, and British painters who came to Paris for a European training. Together with the neighbouring Académie Julian, the school became an important centre of the cosmopolitan artistic life of turn-of-the-century Montparnasse, until it finally closed its doors in the 1930s.