Global Symposium

Montparnasse and its Legacies

November 13 & 14, 2026

Columbia Global Paris Center | Reid Hall

Paris, France

Hosted by Columbia University’s Reid Hall & the Columbia Global Paris Center, and organized in collaboration with the Associations L’AiR Arts and Cité Falguière, this symposium marks the beginning of Montparnasse International, a community-initiated programme designed to reaffirm the Montparnasse district as a historic epicenter for artistic creation and intercultural exchange.

Montparnasse has long been internationally recognized as a cradle of artistic production, renowned for the multicultural and heterogeneous avant-gardism that ignited at the dawn of the twentieth century. French artists and global practitioners alike were drawn to the district by its reputation for creative innovation and radical freedom. Yet, despite its deep association with some of the century's most celebrated figures—including Brâncuși, Soutine, Zadkine, Foujita, Modigliani, Picasso, and others—Montparnasse remains markedly under-examined and under-theorized as a holistic creative ecosystem.

While the first École de Paris (1905–1940) anchors the neighborhood's reputation and mythology, the artistic culture of Montparnasse continued to resonate into the postwar period, animated by figures such as Alberto Giacometti, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Agnès Varda, Frans Krajcberg, and Claude de Soria. Today, the legacy of the École de Paris serves as a powerful historical model for cultural hospitality, at a time when the necessity of cross-cultural dialogue is more pressing than ever.

This symposium aims to unite currently disparate but interlinked strands of research—spanning art history, museum studies, cultural anthropology, disability studies, gender studies, and queer theory—to initiate a long-term project decoding the complex creative ecosystem of Montparnasse, both past and present. In doing so, we seek to reexamine the relationship between Montparnassian creators and place, interrogating what made—and continues to make—this area a unique site of global creative fusion.

REGISTER

  • Brunhilde Biebuyck has been affiliated with Reid Hall since 1984 and has played a central role in the development of Columbia University’s academic presence in Paris for more than four decades. Before becoming Director of Reid Hall and the Columbia Global Paris Center, she directed both the Columbia-Penn Undergraduate Program in Paris and Columbia University’s M.A. Program in French Cultural Studies.

    She earned her Ph.D. from the Folklore Institute at Indiana University in 1981. Following her doctoral studies, she joined the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France as a research associate, working with a team of linguists and scholars specializing in African languages and oral literature. Throughout her career, she has contributed to scholarly publications, translations, and research initiatives focused on African oral traditions, literature, and cultural history.

    In addition to her work in folklore and African studies, Biebuyck has devoted considerable effort to documenting the largely unknown history of Reid Hall, whose French-American story began in 1893 when the property was acquired by the philanthropist Elisabeth Mills Reid. Biebuyck’s ongoing research explores the site's rich intellectual, artistic, and social history from 1750 to 1964, when it was gifted to Columbia University by Elisabeth's daughter-in-law, Helen Rogers Reid. The results of this work are presented on a dedicated website that is regularly updated with newly discovered archival materials, photographs, and historical profiles.

    Through her leadership, her scholarly contributions, and her stewardship of Reid Hall’s legacy, Brunhilde Biebuyck has helped strengthen Columbia University’s longstanding engagement with France and foster meaningful connections among students, scholars, artists, and institutions around the world.

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This event will be held primarily in English; no simultaneous translation will be provided.

Program Schedule

Day 1: Friday, November 13

Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc: 9 am - 4 pm

Salle de Conference: 4:30 pm - 7 pm

8:30 Registration

9.00 - 9.15 am - Welcome

  • Marie Doezema, Senior Special Projects Manager, Columbia Global Paris Center: Reid Hall Today: Where Scholarship and Creativity Converge in the Heart of Montparnasse

  • Olivier Solère, Conseiller du 6ème arrondissement, délégué à la culture, au patrimoine, au devoir de mémoire et aux universités

9.15-9.30 am - Symposium Overview: Overarching Themes

  • Stephanie Nadalo, Association Cité Falguière and Clare Patrick, Association L’AiR Arts

9.30-11.00 am - Session 1

Panel - Mapping Montparnasse: the human and structural geographies of a cultural quartier

  • Borcuch, Matylda: Beyond Montmartre: Alice Halicka, Louis Marcoussis and the Polish Artistic Milieu of Montparnasse

  • Legé, Alice S.: The Ecole de Paris: from Montmartre to Montparnasse, a new Parisian Identity

  • Moheng, Anne-Cécile: Zadkine in Montparnasse, from the studio to the museum

  • Ruckdeschel, Annabel: Exhibiting the Carrefour du monde: Café Exhibitions and the Making of Montparnasse as a Global Art Center, 1921–1930

Break

11.30-1.00 pm - Session 2

Panel - Lost histories of Montparnasse: challenging the structural erasure of artist identities

  • Valori, Mario: Designed Not to Register: Nena Saguil and the Archives of the École de Paris

  • Patrick, Clare: In Her Hands: Recontextualising Adrienne Fidelin amidst Surrealist Circles

  • Peng, Ziqi: Reconstructing Zhang Hua (1898–1970): An Overlooked Artist in the Montparnasse Network

Lunch break 1.00- 2:30pm

2.30-4.00 pm - Session 3

Panel - Disseminating Montparnasse: the international impact of Montparnasse

  • Helwig, Sherri: She Came Back Prudence Heward: A Feminist Arts Management Reading of the Impact of les Années Folles in Montparnasse on the Development of Canadian Art

  • Herold-Marme, Amanda: The Spanish School of Paris: Montparnasse as a marker of political and artistic identity

  • Kluczewska-Wójcik, Agnieszka: Reinterpreting the École de Paris in Poland: Historiography, Canon Formation, and the Contribution of the Polish Institute of World Art Studies

Break

4:30-7 pm - Session 4

Forum - Institutions of Montparnasse: Building resilient spaces together

Move across to Salle de Conference

We are excited to gather key thinkers, creatives, researchers, cultural workers, museum professionals and activists from Montparnasse-based organisations for a discussion on strategies for building resilient cultural spaces. Styled in a forum format, this session will allow for a range of contributions from participants, fielding key themes around sustaining creative work, building lasting relationships, and affirming the importance of cultural practice throughout history and today. By convening both heritage and contemporary practitioners in one conversation, we believe this will be an opportunity to unite often disparate but interlinked strands of practice—spanning art history, museum studies, cultural anthropology, and contemporary artistic production.

Day 2: Saturday, November 14

Salle Ginsberg-Leclerc

9.00-10.30 am- Session 5

Panel - Les Montparnassiennes: women artists and their networks

  • Boularand, Elisa & Vertray, Jason: From the Académie de la Grande Chaumière to the Impasse du Maine: a female creative ecosystem in Antoine Bourdelle’s classes and studio.

    Biebuyck, Brunhilde : Forgotten but Not Lost: American Women Artists and the Girls' Art Club in Montparnasse, 1893–1914

  • Keny, Tara: Circles of Influence: Natalie Clifford Barney's Garden of Friendship

Break

11 am-12.30 pm - Session 6

Panel - New biographies of Montparnasse artists

  • Masurovsky, Marc: "I am what I am' [Shirley Goldfarb and Gregory Masurovsky]

  • McMurrey, Fiona: Accumulations and Dispersals: Malachi Farrell and The Plasticity of Memory

  • Rinne-Kanto, Sini: Montparnasse As Seen Through the Eyes of Tove Jansson

  • Winiarski, Artur: Jean Lambert-Rucki: A Sculptor at the Margins of the École de Paris? Identity, Collaboration, and the Question of Attribution

Lunch break 12.30-2.30 pm

3.00-4.30 pm - Session 7

Panel - ⁠Broadening the Canon: Contemporary practice with historic sites and sources

A panel bringing together cultural workers (artists, practice-based researchers and curators) who practice in historic sites or draw from historic and archival material in their contemporary practices - tracing legacies of history into the creative work of today.

  • Cipriano, Miguel: The Hand in the Machine

  • Davies, Lillian: Tracing a circle: artist networks and formalist patterns in artmaking, from 1909 to today.

  • Gooden, Mario: A presentation on the source material, references, and citations for the performance Black Holes Ain’t So Black

  • Woodson, Rachael: Rafael Serrano and the Spaces In-Between

Break

with movement intervention by Hiie Saumaa

5-6.30 pm - Session 8

Round table - Transnational Contemporaries: Facilitating artistic development & creative practice through exchange in Montparnasse

This roundtable will examine, collectively and in conversation, the experiences of working transnationally today, while reflecting on the context of Montparnasse as an historic birthplace of international artistic networks. Gathering both curators and artists, based in Paris or with ties to Paris through residencies, the conversation will offer an opportunity for each speaker to share their experiences and invite deeper understanding of the importance of artistic mobility and exposure to new spaces, people and perspectives.

  • Chankalun (Chan, Karen): Tracing the Invisible

  • Depaule, Judith : A New School of Paris? The Atelier des Artistes en Exil: A Contemporary Response to Artistic Exile

  • Harsanyi, Anna: The Work of Gathering

  • Lee, Jay: Nomadic Material Research

  • Lefèvre, Guillaume: The Artist Residency Ecosystem and Its Networks: Dialogues Between Past and Present, and Contemporary Dynamics in Paris's 14th Arrondissement

  • Riveron Blanco, Ricardo: Modes of Engagement

Closing remarks

Proposals were submitted via the open call from scholars, artists, and cultural professionals from around the world.

The full program details, including abstracts and speaker bios, will be available soon.

Montparnasse International Week

The symposium, Montparnasse and its Legacies, opens Montparnasse International Week (15-21 November). Hosted by local cultural institutions, this dynamic week offers public events, site visits, and walking tours designed to immerse you in the neighborhood's living arts ecosystem. Consider extending your visit to experience these events firsthand, celebrating both the legacy of the École de Paris and Montparnasse’s ongoing role as a global hub for creative exchange.

For recommendations on hotels and restaurants in the area, please consult our practical information page.