La Ruche, young Soutine, and the Russian Jews -- Modi, Montparnasse, Netter, and Zbo -- Midi, landscapes in turmoil, a pastry chef, and assaults on the canvas -- Dr. Barnes, the discovery of Soutine, and the rise of the foreigners -- Marc Chagall, the great Bakst, Paris, and the October Revolution -- André Warnod, the School of Paris, and the Jews -- Artistes juifs, Rembrandt's Carcass of Beef and the daughter of Elie Faure -- The Great Depression, Pascin, the death of Zbo, and the judgments of Soutine -- Idyll, Madeleine and Marcellin and the portrait -- Charles Maurras, Léon Blum, and the resurgence of anti-Semitism -- Mademoiselle Garde, trapped aliens, and roundup in the Vélodrome -- The Fall of France, Vichy, and a death warrant -- Two American heroes, the escape of Chagall, and the fall of the School of Paris -- Marie-Berthe, hiding, and a desperate dash to Paris -- The aftermath

For a couple of decades before World War II, a group of immigrant painters and sculptors-- including Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine and Jules Pascin-- dominated the new art scene of Montparnasse in Paris. Art critics gave them the name "the School of Paris" to set them apart from the French-born (and less talented) young artists of the period. Modigliani and Chagall eventually attained enormous worldwide popularity, but in those earlier days, most School of Paris painters looked on Soutine as their most talented contemporary