Audio tourMontparnasse: Mondriaan and Other Dutch Painters (1)

IMPORTANT!
READ THIS FIRST!

Please read this introduction before pressing ‘Start’. You can also listen to it if you prefer. To start the audio version, simply scroll to the end of the introduction and click on the pictogram. The introduction offers an overview of Dutch painters and sculptors who lived in Montparnasse, and gives tips on how to use the audio tour.
 
Introduction
In the early 20th century and just after the Second World War, many Dutch artists went to live in the Montparnasse district. In the 19th century, Montmartre had been the hotspot for artists in Paris. Unlike the Montmartre artists, however, this new generation did not paint street scenes or landscapes. They withdrew instead to their studios to develop innovative forms of art that drifted further and further away from realistic figurative art (think cubism, dada, neo-plasticism). The best-known Dutch painters from that time are Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg, Karel Appel and Corneille. Mondriaan and Van Doesburg were part of the De Stijl group. Along with Constant Nieuwenhuijs, Appel and Corneille were members of the Cobra movement, founded in Paris in 1948. This international group of avant-garde artists made ‘primitive’, colourful, sometimes abstract art. The name CoBrA came from the home cities of the movement’s founders: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
In Montparnasse Dutch artists would meet up in cafés, restaurants and basement jazz clubs to exchange ideas with fellow artists Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, Henri Le Fauconnier, Jean-Michel Atlan and Pablo Picasso.
 
If you would like to know more about Dutch painters in Montparnasse, try part 2 of the audio tour, ‘Montparnasse: Mondriaan and Other Dutch Painters’.
 
If you would like to know more about Dutch painters in Montmartre, we recommend the ‘Montmartre: Van Gogh and Other Dutch Painters’ audio tour.

Now press 'Start' and enjoy your walk around this part of Montparnasse. We start at 278 Boulevard Raspail, Piet Mondriaan’s third and final address in Paris. The audio information will start to play automatically when you enter the GPS zone around each stop. If the audio does not start, you can either read the information or start the audio manually by tapping the number of the stop on your screen.
 
We’ve included images for each stop, to illustrate the audio content. We hope you enjoy your walk!