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34-571: International Klein Blue (IKB) was developed by Yves Klein in collaboration with Edouard Adam, a Parisian art paint supplier whose shop is still in business on the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet in Montparnasse . IKB uses a matte, synthetic resin binder which suspends the color and allows the pigment to maintain as much of its original qualities and intensity of color as possible. The synthetic resin used in

68-489: A steam train crashed through the station in 1895, an event captured in widely known photographs and reproduced in full scale in several locations. The station serves intercity TGV trains to the west and southwest of France including Tours , Bordeaux , Rennes and Nantes , and suburban and regional services on the Transilien Paris ;– Montparnasse routes. There is also a metro station . Gare Montparnasse

102-456: A Soleau envelope registers the date of invention, according to the depositor, prior to any legal patent application. The copy held by the INPI was destroyed in 1965. Klein's own copy, which the INPI returned to him duly stamped, still exists. In March 1960, Klein patented a method by which he was able to distance himself from the physical creation of his paintings by remotely directing models covered in

136-646: A few blocks from the Gare Montparnasse. The Pasteur Institute is located in the area. Beneath the ground are tunnels of the Catacombs of Paris . In the 18th century, students recited poems at the foot of an artificial hillock of rock rubble from the Catacombs of Paris . Ironically, they decided to baptise this mound Mount Parnassus , named after the Mount Parnassus celebrated in Ancient Greek literature . In

170-400: A flow of conceived lines. That could not be seen in my town. The sun of Art then shone only on Paris." While the area attracted people who came to live and work in the creative, bohemian environment, it also became home for political exiles such as Vladimir Lenin , Leon Trotsky , Porfirio Diaz , and Simon Petlyura . But, World War II forced the dispersal of the artistic society, and after

204-490: A meeting place where cultural ideas and connections were hatched and mulled over. The cafés at the centre of Montparnasse's night-life were in the Carrefour Vavin, now renamed Place Pablo-Picasso. In Montparnasse's heyday (from 1910 to 1920), the cafés Le Dôme , Closerie des Lilas , La Rotonde , Le Select , and La Coupole —all of which are still in business—were the places where starving artists could occupy

238-449: A table all evening for a few centimes . If they fell asleep, the waiters were instructed not to wake them. Arguments were common, some fueled by intellect, others by alcohol, and if there were fights (and there often were) the police were never summoned. If you could not pay your bill, people such as La Rotonde's proprietor, Victor Libion, would often accept a drawing , holding it until the artist could pay. As such, there were times when

272-734: A tiny city grant, the museum was a non-profit operation. The Gallery of Montparnasse was one of the first to introduce abstract expressionism in France in the 1940s, and still holds contemporary art exhibitions today. SNCF , the French rail company, has its head office in Montparnasse near the 14th arrondissement. Prior to the completion of the current Air France head office in Tremblay-en-France in December 1995, Air France had its headquarters in

306-609: A tower located next to the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Montparnasse and in the 15th arrondissement ; Air France had its headquarters in the tower for about 30 years. The Vandamme Library (Bibliothèque Vandamme) is located in the neighbourhood. 48°50′37.10″N 2°19′25.72″E  /  48.8436389°N 2.3238111°E  / 48.8436389; 2.3238111 Gare Montparnasse Gare Montparnasse ( French pronunciation: [ɡaʁ mɔ̃paʁnas] ; Montparnasse station), officially Paris Montparnasse ,

340-541: Is an area in the south of Paris , France , on the left bank of the river Seine , centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. It is split between the 6th , 14th , and 15th arrondissements of the city. Montparnasse has been part of Paris since 1669. The area also gives its name to: Students in the 17th century who came to recite poetry in

374-493: Is described in John Glassco 's 1970 book Memoirs of Montparnasse . Virtually penniless painters, sculptors, writers, poets and composers came from around the world to thrive in the creative atmosphere of Montparnasse and for the cheap rent at artist communes, such as La Ruche . Living without running water, in damp, unheated Ateliers , many sold their works for a few Francs just to buy food. Jean Cocteau once said that poverty

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408-427: Is one of the seven large Paris railway termini , and is located in the 14th and 15th arrondissements . The station opened in 1840, was rebuilt in 1852 and relocated in 1969 to a new station just south of the original location, where subsequently the prominent Montparnasse Tower was constructed. It is a central element to the Montparnasse area. The original station is noted for the Montparnasse derailment , where

442-693: Is the only mainline terminus in Paris not directly connected to the RER system, though the Montparnasse main line is connected to the RER at Versailles-Chantiers and the LGV Atlantique at Massy Palaiseau . The station opened in 1840 as Gare de l'Ouest , later being renamed. A second station was built between 1848 and 1852. On 25 August 1944, the German military governor of Paris, General von Choltitz , surrendered his garrison to

476-500: Is where his career as a photographer began, and where James Joyce , Gertrude Stein , Kiki of Montparnasse , Jean Cocteau and the others filed in and posed in black and white. The rue de la Gaité in Montparnasse was the site of many of the great music-hall theatres, in particular the famous " Bobino ". On their stages, using then-popular single name pseudonyms or one birth name only, Damia , Kiki , Mayol and Georgius , sang and performed to packed houses. And here too, Les Six

510-483: The Black Sun Press in Paris in 1927, publishing works by such future luminaries as D. H. Lawrence , Archibald MacLeish , James Joyce , Kay Boyle , Hart Crane , Ernest Hemingway , John Dos Passos , William Faulkner , Dorothy Parker and others. As well, Bill Bird published through his Three Mountains Press until British heiress Nancy Cunard took it over. The cafés, bistros and bars of Montparnasse were

544-507: The Granville –Paris Express, which overran the buffer stop . The engine careened across almost 30 metres (100 ft) of the station concourse, crashed through a 60-centimetre (2 ft) thick wall, shot across a terrace and smashed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 10 metres (33 ft) below, where it stood on its nose. Two of the 131 passengers sustained injuries, along with

578-592: The Musiktheater im Revier , Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are executed in IKB. One artwork he made is the Anthropometrie. In the original performance of Klein's Monotone-Silence Symphony in 1960, three naked models on stage were painted with International Klein Blue body paint during the performance, and left imprints of their bodies on canvas. Montparnasse Montparnasse ( French: [mɔ̃paʁnas] )

612-461: The English painter Nina Hamnett arrived in Montparnasse, on her first evening the smiling man at the next table at Café de la Rotonde graciously introduced himself as "Modigliani, painter and Jew". They became good friends and Hamnett later recounting how she once borrowed a jersey and corduroy trousers from Modigliani, then went to La Rotonde and danced in the street all night. Between 1921 and 1924,

646-620: The French General Philippe Leclerc at the old station. (see Liberation of Paris ). During the 1960s, a newer station integrated into a complex of office buildings was built further down the track. In 1969, the old station was demolished and the Tour Montparnasse built on its site. An extension was built in 1990 to host the TGV Atlantique . The Gare Montparnasse became famous for the derailment on 22 October 1895 of

680-522: The alternative to the Montmartre district which had been the intellectual breeding ground for the previous generation of artists. The Paris of Charles Baudelaire , Robert de Montesquiou , Zola , Manet , France , Degas , Fauré typically indulged in the Bohemianism cultural refinements of Dandyism . The cultural scene during the late-1920s for expatriates in Montparnasse and the 6th arrondissement

714-517: The binder is a polyvinyl acetate developed and marketed at the time under the name Rhodopas M or M60A by the French pharmaceutical company Rhône-Poulenc . Adam still sells the binder under the name "Médium Adam 25". In May 1960, Klein deposited a Soleau envelope , registering the paint formula under the name International Klein Blue (IKB) at the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI), but he never patented IKB. Only valid under French law,

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748-657: The café's walls were littered with a collection of artworks. There were many areas where the artists congregated, one of them being near Le Dôme at no. 10 rue Delambre called the Dingo Bar . It was the hang-out of artists and ex-patriate Americans and the place where Canadian writer Morley Callaghan , who came with his friend Ernest Hemingway , both still unpublished writers, met the already-established writer F. Scott Fitzgerald . When Man Ray 's friend and Dadaist , Marcel Duchamp , left for New York City, Man Ray set up his first studio at l'Hôtel des Ecoles at no. 15 rue Delambre. This

782-489: The color. Although Klein had worked with blue extensively in his earlier career, it was not until 1958 that he used it as the central component of a piece (the color effectively becoming the art). Klein embarked on a series of monochromatic works using IKB as the central theme. These included performance art where Klein painted models' naked bodies and had them walk, roll and sprawl upon blank canvases as well as more conventional single-color canvases. Six sculptures by Klein in

816-575: The early 20th century, many Bretons who were driven out of their region by poverty arrived by train at Gare Montparnasse , in the heart of the Montparnasse district, and settled nearby. Montparnasse became famous in the Roaring Twenties , referred to as les Années Folles (the Crazy Years), and the 1930s as the heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris. From 1910 to the start of World War II , Paris' artistic circles migrated to Montparnasse as

850-747: The engine driver, who was trying to make up lost time. A conductor was given a 25- franc fine and the engine driver a 50-franc fine. Replicas of the train crash are recreated outside the Mundo a Vapor ("Steam World") museum chain buildings in Brazil, in the southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul , in the city of Canela . From Paris Montparnasse train services depart to major French cities such as: Le Mans , Rennes , Saint-Brieuc , Brest , Saint-Malo , Vannes , Lorient , Quimper , Angers , Nantes , Saint-Nazaire , Tours , Poitiers , La Rochelle , Angoulême , Bordeaux , Toulouse , Bayonne and Granville . The station

884-404: The fireman and two conductors. The only fatality was a woman on the street below, Marie-Augustine Aguilard, who was temporarily taking over her husband's work duty while he went out to get the newspapers. She was killed by falling masonry. The railway company later paid for her funeral and provided a pension to look after her two children. The accident was caused by a faulty Westinghouse brake and

918-680: The hilly neighbourhood nicknamed it after " Mount Parnassus ", home to the nine Muses of arts and sciences in Greek mythology . The hill was levelled to construct the Boulevard Montparnasse in the 18th century. During the French Revolution many dance halls and cabarets opened their doors, becoming gathering points for artists. The area is also known for cafés and bars, such as the Breton restaurants specialising in crêpes (thin pancakes) located

952-531: The number of Americans in Paris swelled from 6,000 to 30,000. While most of the artistic community gathered here were struggling to eke out an existence, well-heeled American socialites such as Peggy Guggenheim , and Edith Wharton from New York City, Harry Crosby from Boston and Beatrice Wood from San Francisco were caught in the fever of creativity. Robert McAlmon , and Maria and Eugene Jolas came to Paris and published their literary magazine Transition . Harry Crosby and his wife Caresse would establish

986-1140: The other artists who gathered in Montparnasse were Jacob Macznik , Pablo Picasso , Guillaume Apollinaire , Ossip Zadkine , Julio Gonzalez , Moise Kisling , Jean Cocteau , Erik Satie , Marios Varvoglis , Marc Chagall , Nina Hamnett , Jean Rhys , Fernand Léger , Jacques Lipchitz , Max Jacob , Blaise Cendrars , Chaïm Soutine , James Joyce , Ernest Hemingway , Yitzhak Frenkel Frenel , Michel Kikoine , Pinchus Kremegne , Amedeo Modigliani , Ford Madox Ford , Toño Salazar , Ezra Pound , Max Ernst , Marcel Duchamp , Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti , Henri Rousseau , Constantin Brâncuși , Eva Kotchever , Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore , Paul Fort , Juan Gris , Diego Rivera , Federico Cantú , Angel Zarraga , Marevna , Tsuguharu Foujita , Marie Vassilieff , Léon-Paul Fargue , Alberto Giacometti , René Iché , André Breton , Alfonso Reyes , Pascin , Nils Dardel , Salvador Dalí , Henry Miller , Samuel Beckett , Emil Cioran , Reginald Gray , Endre Ady , Joan Miró , Hilaire Hiler and, in his declining years, Edgar Degas . Montparnasse

1020-627: The war Montparnasse never regained its splendour. Wealthy socialites like Peggy Guggenheim , an art collector who married artist Max Ernst , lived in the Hôtel Lutetia and frequented the artist studios of Montparnasse, acquiring pieces that would come to be recognized as masterpieces now in the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy . The Musée du Montparnasse opened in 1998 at 21 Avenue du Maine and closed in 2015. Although operating with

1054-580: The world ." They came to Montparnasse from all over the globe - from Europe, including Russia, Hungary and Ukraine , from the United States, Canada, Mexico , Central and South America, and from as far away as Japan. Manuel Ortiz de Zárate , Camilo Mori and others made their way from Chile where the profound innovations in art spawned the formation of the Grupo Montparnasse in Santiago . A few of

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1088-411: Was a community where creativity was embraced with all its oddities, each new arrival welcomed unreservedly by its existing members. When Tsuguharu Foujita arrived from Japan in 1913 not knowing a soul, he met Chaïm Soutine , Amedeo Modigliani , Jules Pascin and Fernand Léger virtually the same night and within a week became friends with Juan Gris , Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse . In 1914, when

1122-411: Was a luxury in Montparnasse. First promoted by art dealers such as Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler , today works by those artists sell for millions of euros. In post- World War I Paris, Montparnasse was a euphoric meeting place for the artistic world. Fernand Léger wrote of that period: "man...relaxes and recaptures his taste for life, his frenzy to dance, to spend money ...an explosion of life-force fills

1156-438: Was formed, creating music based on the ideas of Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau . The poet Max Jacob said he came to Montparnasse to "sin disgracefully", but Marc Chagall summed it up differently when he explained why he had gone to Montparnasse: "I aspired to see with my own eyes what I had heard of from so far away: this revolution of the eye, this rotation of colours, which spontaneously and astutely merge with one another in

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