Fontainebleau on Cape Cod

France's Third Republic was always glad to honor les amis de France. After World War I's Armistice, with a gracious Gallic gesture, France established in the famed old Palace of Fontainebleau near Paris the only school ever created by one nation for the exclusive benefit of another. There U. S. artists and musicians have studied under first-rate Frenchmen each summer since; in off hours could relax in the Forest of Fontainebleau's shady green aisles, feed ring-snouted carp in the pond by the palace, down drinks and French pastry at sidewalk cafes and poke mild fun at Rosa Bonheur's bull on its pedestal in the village square.

This summer the Germans are at Fontainebleau. Like other famed French artists, its teachers have not been heard from since France fell. But dark, decisive Painter Jean Despujols, longtime Fontainebleau instructor, who spent last winter portrait-painting in Texas, is in the U. S. Artist Despujols is a sound French academic painter who got off to the right start by winning the Grand Prix de Rome. His attractive blonde wife Millicent, a favorite model, is a Minneapolis girl whom he met when she studied the piano at Fontainebleau. Last spring Sculptress Lillie Harper organized her fellow Fontainebleau alumni, borrowed the buildings of Gull Hill School at Orleans, Mass., got Artist Despujols to transfer Fontainebleau's art school to Cape Cod. There this week, on Bastille Day, it made its formal bow to local society.

Most of Artist Despujols' pupils are Fontainebleau alumni. Instead of a palace for their studio, they have a roomy, north-lighted barn which last year was Gull Hill School's stable, next year will be its gymnasium. Instead of Paris they have Provincetown. Artist Despujols looks at Cape Cod's scrub pines, sand dunes and squat frame houses with a cheerful eye. Says he: "It is not the Isle de France but it is equally paintable."

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