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.