Les aventuriers de l’Art moderne — Épisode 3 : Paris capitale du monde 1916 – 1920

Adapted from Dan Franck’s Le temps des bohèmes, this six-part series immerses viewers in the artistic and literary life of Paris from the early 20^th century to the end of World War Two. Using the codes of fiction and through archival documents and original animated sequences, the series looks at the lives of those who left their mark on this incredible period in modern art.

After his release from hospital, Apollinaire discovered wartime Paris. In Montparnasse, foreign artists were dying of starvation. Most of them were Jews fleeing antisemitism in the East, who lived in an artists’ residence called La Ruche. Soutine, the most destitute of the Russians, struck up a friendship with Modigliani, the most notable of the Italians. In 1917, Apollinaire staged his play Les mamelles de Tirésias, which he subtitled Drame surréaliste, coining the word that would be adopted around the world. One year later, Apollinaire succumbed to the Spanish flu. Modigliani died on January 24, 1920. His funeral, attended by all the Montparnasse artists, brought the Bohemian era to a definitive end.