Académie Colarossi
The Montparnasse atelier where women paid the same fee as men, drew the same nude model, and the evening sketch class ran a pose down from an hour to a single minute.
At the Académie Colarossi a woman paid the same tuition as a man and drew from the same nude model, which the rival Académie Julian, charging women roughly double for segregated studios, did not offer. Colarossi was the Montparnasse private school the Italian sculptor and former artist's model Filippo Colarossi built out of the old Académie Suisse studio he acquired around 1871, giving it his own name after moving to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in 1879. An 1887 guidebook records the flat fee schedule ("Ladies' fees are the same as the men's") and a sketch class you could join for fifty centimes dropped into a plate at the door, its poses timed down from an hour to twenty minutes to five minutes to one. Camille Claudel enrolled in 1881 for exactly these reasons; Paula Modersohn-Becker's letters home are the clearest surviving account, because Madame Colarossi burned the school's records when it closed in the 1930s.
How the system worked
Open to anyone who paid, with none of the competitive entrance examinations of the École des Beaux-Arts. That accessibility, and the low fees, filled the studios with an international student body barred or discouraged elsewhere. There was no language requirement and no portfolio gate.
A private atelier libre grown into a school, spread across a six-studio complex at 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière from 1879. It offered formal tuition, critiques, and anatomy alongside the free-workshop model, and was noted, its founder being a sculptor, for strong classes in life sculpture. Day classes were segregated by sex; the sculptor Jean-Antoine Injalbert held the title of Director of Studies.
The traditional sequence, held loosely: drawing from plaster casts of the antique before advancing to drawing and then painting from the live model. Advancement rested on the visiting masters' judgment rather than fixed grades; the finished académie, a highly worked drawing from a week-long pose, was the measure of a student's reach.
Correction by a rotating roster of visiting masters, who moved through the studios advising on the work. There were no formal examinations or state prizes; the school's value was the access itself, to models, to the nude, and to working painters' critiques, on equal terms for women.
The 1887 schedule set the men's life school at 8 a.m. to noon and 7 to 10 p.m., the women's life school at 1 to 5 p.m., and a sculpture class on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings from 8 to 10. Paula Modersohn-Becker confirms a morning life-drawing class of 8 to 12 in 1900. A student could enrol for as little as a week or as long as ten months.
The visiting masters gave the corrections, easel to easel. Modersohn-Becker's verdict, written home in 1900, was plain: "I have a good spot and the critique is also quite good." The atmosphere was famously informal, the studios remembered as dilapidated and shabby but wholly unconventional.
A commercial school, and cheaper than its rivals, but the distinctive fact is that women and men paid alike. The 1887 guidebook lists 20 francs for a month of day classes down to 120 francs for a full year, with evening rates lower, and states outright that "Ladies' fees are the same as the men's." An informal sketch class in 1902 cost fifty centimes paid into a plate at the entrance; in 1922 the young Henry Moore attended on a book of cheap tickets.
The curriculum, in training order
The first stage: form, proportion, and modelling learned from plaster casts of classical sculpture. The Charles Bargue drawing course, a standard atelier tool of the day, served the same purpose across Paris.
A single pose held by the model for an entire week, worked up into one highly finished drawing: the core exercise of the life room.
The evening class, and the school's signature. A pose was held for progressively shorter spans to train speed and economy, running down from an hour to twenty minutes to five minutes to a single minute.
After drawing, students could paint from the nude, often in a week-long pose like the drawn académie. The specifics of the painting programme are thinly documented and stated cautiously.
A distinctive strength, the founder being a sculptor: modelling the figure from life, in a dedicated class three evenings a week.
Materials, models, and the room
- Charcoal and chalk. The drawing media were charcoal (sticks, pencils, and powder), black chalk, and conté crayon, worked with stumps, a chamois, or the fingers, and lifted with erasers and kneaded bread for the highlights.
- Plaster casts. Casts of antique sculpture were standard studio equipment for the first stage of drawing, alongside simple props, a staff or a stool, for the living model.
- The studios. Six studios at 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière, remembered as shabby but unconventional, with the sculpture rooms on the ground floor to bear the weight. The finer physical claims (north-facing windows, cast-iron stoves, gas evening light) are inferred from typical Paris ateliers and not documented for Colarossi.
- The models. Professional models, said to be often Italian though this is unverified, paid collectively from the pooled tuition. Colarossi himself had made his name as a model before he ran the school. Poses ran from a single minute in the sketch class to a full week in the finished académie.
The people
Who taught
Jean-Antoine Injalbert · Director of Studies
Sculptor who also taught at the École des Beaux-Arts; held the school's one formal title and anchored its strong life-sculpture teaching.
Raphaël Collin · from c. 1879
Academic painter of a light, plein-air cast; especially influential on the generation of Japanese artists then studying in Paris.
Gustave Courtois · from c. 1879
Academic painter trained under Gérôme; also taught at the nearby Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret · late 19th century
Leading naturalist painter and Courtois's close friend and studio-mate.
Wilhelmina Douglas Hawley · from 1893
Appointed the academy's first woman teacher, a fitting hire for the school that treated women students as equals.
Frances Hodgkins · from 1910
New Zealand painter appointed to teach, one of the few women running a class in a Paris academy of the day.
Who trained here
Camille Claudel · enrolled 1881
Chose Colarossi because it was cheaper, taught more modelling, and gave women the nude model on the same terms as men. Auguste Rodin mentored her here, though his formal teaching role is unclear; she later wrote, "it's no longer anything like Rodin."
Alphonse Mucha · studied 1889, later taught
Enrolled after the Académie Julian until his patron withdrew funding; returned to teach a decorative-arts course whose catalogue promised the knowledge for panels, windows, porcelain, enamels, furniture, jewellery, and posters.
Paula Modersohn-Becker · 1900 and later stays
The German painter left the clearest student record: a 1900 letter home confirming her 8-to-12 life-drawing class and her enjoyment of afternoon sketch sessions with a fresh half-hour pose. Her testimony stands in for the burned archive.
The international student body · from the 1880s
Colarossi drew painters from across Europe, the Americas, Australasia, and Japan, kept there by low, equal fees and open admission.
The primary record
- Paula Modersohn-Becker, Briefe und Tagebuchblätter (1920): the 1900 letter, "Vormittags von 8-12 bin ich bei Colarossi und zeichne nach dem lebenden Modell... die Korrektur ist auch ganz gut" ("Mornings from 8 to 12 I am at Colarossi's and draw from the live model... the critique is also quite good").. The definitive proof of attendance and the teaching's quality.
- D. Herring, The Art Student's Guide to Paris (1887): the fee schedule, the class hours, and the line "Ladies' fees are the same as the men's."
- The Académie Colarossi catalogue (c. 1890s): the aim of Mucha's course, "the necessary knowledge for artistic decoration, applied to decorative panels, windows, porcelain, enamels, furniture, jewellery, posters, etc."
- Odile Ayral-Clause, Camille Claudel: A Life (2002): Colarossi's c. 1871 acquisition of the Suisse studio, the reported 500-franc price, and the early name Académie de la Rose.
Open questions
- The founding is layered: the school is bounded from 1870, Colarossi's acquisition of the old Académie Suisse studio is dated 1871, and the name Colarossi and the Montparnasse home date from the 1879 move; 1870 is used here as the outer start.
- The exact closure year in the 1930s is undocumented; the school's own records were destroyed by Madame Colarossi around the time it shut.
- Whistler and Rodin are named as teachers, but whether they were salaried instructors or occasional visiting critics is unverified; neither is listed here as a confirmed teacher.
- Modigliani's attendance from 1906 is widely repeated but rests on no surviving registration record, so it is left out of the confirmed students.
- The massier (student-monitor) system, standard at Paris academies, is assumed but not confirmed for Colarossi by any primary source.
- The models' identities and pay, and the studios' physical detail (windows, stoves, lighting), are largely unknown and inferred from comparable ateliers.
Common questions
What was the Académie Colarossi?
A private art school in Montparnasse, Paris, that the Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi built from the old Académie Suisse studio and named for himself after 1879. It ran from around 1870 into the 1930s as an open-admission, low-fee alternative to the École des Beaux-Arts, and was known for admitting women to draw the nude on the same terms, and at the same price, as men.
How was Colarossi different from the Académie Julian?
On fees and equality. Both admitted women and both prepared students outside the state system, but Julian segregated its women's studios and charged women roughly double, while Colarossi charged the same tuition to both and, being a sculptor's school, taught strong life-modelling classes. An 1887 guidebook records the equal-fee rule in print.
Did women study the nude at the Académie Colarossi?
Yes, and this was central to its draw. Women drew and modelled from the nude on equal terms with men, at a time when the École des Beaux-Arts barred women entirely until 1897. Camille Claudel enrolled in 1881 precisely for that access and for the school's emphasis on modelling.
What was the timed sketch class at Colarossi?
The evening life class, and the school's signature exercise. A single pose was held for progressively shorter spans, an hour, then twenty minutes, then five, then one, forcing students to seize the essentials faster each time. It cost as little as fifty centimes dropped into a plate at the door.
Who studied at the Académie Colarossi?
Camille Claudel, Alphonse Mucha, and Paula Modersohn-Becker among many others, in a student body drawn from across Europe, the Americas, Australasia, and Japan. Because Madame Colarossi destroyed the school's archive, most of what is known comes from these students' own letters and journals.
Why were the Académie Colarossi's records lost?
Madame Colarossi is reported to have destroyed the school's institutional records around the time it closed in the 1930s, in retaliation for her husband's infidelities. The loss is why the academy's operation has to be reconstructed from guidebooks, catalogues, and student testimony rather than its own files.
Part of the Academies atlas, how painting was actually taught, system by system. The living version of this question: atelier vs online course, and the painters themselves in the Painter Atlas.