Massier

[3] The role massier existed in art schools from their creation onwards, due to students' need to club together to buy drawing, painting and sculpting tools, paper, canvases etc.

When the Beaux-Arts de Paris was split into schools of art and architecture in 1968, the massiers' roles were also split and so, for example, the painting students entering in large numbers from 1968 onwards and from quantitatively very modest class backgrounds had their painting materials and models paid for by the school itself.

The architecture schools became independent from the schools of fine art in 1968 but retained the principal of massiers, until the architecture section provided the majority of 'grands massiers', including the architects and urbanists Jean Maneval (1925-1986), Michel Holley (1924) and Claude Guislain (1929-2011), etc.

The first woman to hold the role and not to be from the architecture section was Béatrice Chagnon, born in 1957, elected in 1983.

[4] Massiers continued to exist in private studios and many less important art schools.