Alice Ernestine Prin (2 October 1901 – 29 April 1953), nicknamed the ''Queen of Montparnasse'' and often known as ''Kiki de Montparnasse'', was a French
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
,
chanteuse
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...
, actress,
memoir
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...
ist and
painter during the
Jazz Age. She flourished in, and helped define, the liberated culture of Paris in the so-called
Années folles
The ''Années folles'' (, "crazy years" in French) was the decade of the 1920s in France. It was coined to describe the rich social, artistic, and cultural collaborations of the period. The same period is also referred to as the Roaring Twen ...
("crazy years" in French). She became one of the most famous models of the 20th-century and in the history of
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
art.
Early life
Born as an illegitimate child in
Châtillon-sur-Seine
Châtillon-sur-Seine (, ) is a commune of the Côte-d'Or department, eastern France.
The Musée du Pays Châtillonnais is housed in old abbey of Notre-Dame de Châtillon, within the town, known for its collection of pre-Roman and Roman relic ...
,
Côte d'Or
Côte is a British cafe chain founded by Richard Caring, Andy Bassadone, Chris Benians and Nick Fiddler in Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross ...
, Alice Prin had "a wretched childhood that could only lead to laughter or despair". She was raised in abject poverty by her grandmother. At age twelve, she was sent by train to live with her mother, a
linotypist, in Paris in order to help earn an income for her family. Harsh, degrading jobs followed, and she worked in printing shops, shoe factories, and bakeries. During this time, she began her lifelong joy of decorating herself. She "would crumble a petal from her mother's fake geraniums to give color to her cheeks and was fired from a nasty job at a bakery because she darkened her eyebrows with burnt matchsticks".
By the age of fourteen, Prin's "large and splendid body" had garnered the artistic and sexual attention of various Parisian denizens, and she began surreptitiously posing nude for
sculptors
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
. "It bothered me a little to take off my clothes," Prin wrote her in her memoirs, but "it was the custom". Her decision to become a nude model created discord with her mother. One day, her mother unexpectedly intruded into an artist's studio in a rage, denounced Prin as a shameless
prostitute
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
, and disowned her forever.
Now without money or a roof over her head, the teenage Kiki determined to make her living exclusively by posing for artists. As a beautiful dark-haired French girl, she soon found herself in popular demand. At the time, she had scant
pubic hair
Pubic hair is terminal body hair that is found in the genital area of adolescent and adult humans. The hair is located on and around the sex organs and sometimes at the top of the inside of the thighs. In the pubic region around the pubis bon ...
and, when posing, she occasionally would draw on fake hair with a piece of
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
. As her fame grew, she became a local celebrity who symbolized the
Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...
quarter's nonconformity and its rejection of the
social norm
Social norms are shared standards of acceptance, acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normat ...
s of the .
Modeling career
Adopting a single name, ''"Kiki"'', Prin became a fixture of the Montparnasse social scene and a popular model, posing for dozens of artists, including
Sanyu,
Chaïm Soutine
Chaïm Soutine (13 January 1893 – 9 August 1943) was a Belarusian painter who made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living and working in Paris.
Inspired by classic painting in the European tradition, exemplified by the ...
,
Julien Mandel
Julien Mandel (1893 – 1961) was a Jewish photographer and filmmaker. He was one of the best-known commercial photographers of female nudes of the early twentieth century. He worked in Paris and his signature photography became known in the 191 ...
,
Tsuguharu Foujita
was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan, who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. At the height of his fame in Paris, during the 1920s, he was known for his portraits of nudes using an opalescen ...
,
Constant Detré
Constant Detré (Szilárd Eduard Diettmann, 2 January 1891 – 10 April 1945) was a Hungarian artist. He settled in Paris where he mixed from 1920 to 1940 with representatives of the School of Paris and other Montparnasse artists, several of who ...
,
Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...
,
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...
,
Arno Breker,
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...
,
Per Krohg,
Hermine David
Hermine Lionette Cartan David (19 April 1886 in Paris – 1 December 1970 in Bry-sur-Marne) was a French painter.
Early life and education
Hermine David was born in Paris in 1886. She was born out of wedlock; her mother insisted that her b ...
,
Pablo Gargallo
Pablo EmilioorPau Emili Gargallo (5 January 1881 – 28 December 1934), known simply as Pau or Pablo Gargallo, was a Spanish sculptor and painter.
Life and career
Born in Maella, Aragon, he moved to Barcelona, with his family in 1888, where ...
, and
Tono Salazar
TONO is a Norwegian corporation that administers copyrights for music in Norway.
It is owned and governed by its members; composers, music publishers and text-writers. Through the managing agreement the originators give TONO an exclusive right to ...
.
Moïse Kisling
Moïse Kisling (born Mojżesz Kisling; 22 January 1891 – 29 April 1953) was a Polish-born French painter. He moved to Paris in 1910 at the age of 19, and became a French citizen in 1915, after serving and being wounded with the French Foreign ...
painted a portrait of Kiki titled ''Nu assis'', one of his best known. In his 1976 book ''Memoirs of Montparnasse'', Canadian poet
John Glassco
John Glassco (December 15, 1909 – January 29, 1981) was a Canadian poet, memoirist and novelist. According to Stephen Scobie, "Glassco will be remembered for his brilliant autobiography, his elegant, classical poems, and for his translations."S ...
recalled that:
In Autumn 1921, Prin met the American visual artist
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
, and the two soon entered into a stormy eight-year relationship. She lived with Man Ray in his studio on rue Campagne-Première until 1929 during which time he made hundreds of portraits of her. She became his muse at the time and the subject of some of his best-known images, including the
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
image ''
Le Violon d'Ingres
''Le Violon d'Ingres'' (French for ''Ingres's Violin'') is a black-and-white photograph created by American visual artist Man Ray in 1924. It is one of his best-known photographs and of surrealist photography. The picture was first published in th ...
'' (Ingres' Violin) and ''Noire et blanche'' (Black and White).
She also appeared in nine short and frequently experimental films, including
Fernand Léger's 1923
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
ist work ''
Ballet mécanique
''Ballet Mécanique'' (1923–24) is a Dadaist post-Cubist art film conceived, written, and co-directed by the artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with the filmmaker Dudley Murphy (with cinematographic input from Man Ray).Chilvers, Ian & Gl ...
'' without any credit.
By 1929, Prin had reached the zenith of her fame. A symbol of
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
and creative Paris and of the possibility of being a woman and finding an artistic place, she was elected the ''
Queen of Montparnasse'' at the age of twenty-eight. Despite her local fame, she continued to live a hand-to-mouth existence. Even during difficult times, she maintained her positive attitude, saying "all I need is an onion, a bit of bread, and a bottle of red
ine
INE, Ine or ine may refer to:
Institutions
* Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center
* Instituto Nacional de Estadística (disambiguation)
* Instituto Nacional de Estatística (disambiguation)
* Instituto Nacional Elec ...
and I will always find somebody to offer me that."
Artwork and autobiography
A painter in her own right, Prin had a sold-out exhibition of her paintings in 1927
at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in Paris. Signing her work with her chosen single name, ''Kiki'', her drawings and paintings comprise portraits, self-portraits, social activities, fanciful animals, and dreamy landscapes composed in a light, slightly uneven,
expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
style that is a reflection of her carefree manner and boundless optimism.
In 1929, she published an autobiography titled ''
Kiki's Memoirs
''Kiki's Memoirs'' is a 1929 autobiography by Alice Prin (October 2, 1901 – April 29, 1953), known as Kiki de Montparnasse; a model, artist, and actress working in Montparnasse, Paris in the first half of the twentieth century.
Translated ...
'', with
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
and
Tsuguharu Foujita
was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan, who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. At the height of his fame in Paris, during the 1920s, he was known for his portraits of nudes using an opalescen ...
providing introductions. In 1930, the book was translated by
Samuel Putnam
Samuel Putnam (October 10, 1892 – January 15, 1950) was an American translator and scholar of Romance languages. He is also noteworthy as the author of ''Paris Was Our Mistress'', a memoir on writers and artists associated with the American ex-p ...
and published in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
by Black Manikin Press, but it was immediately banned by the
United States government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
. A copy of the first US edition was held in the section for banned books in the
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
through the 1970s. However, the book had been reprinted under the title ''The Education of a Young Model'' throughout the 1950s and 1960s (e.g., a 1954 edition by Bridgehead has the Hemingway Introduction and photos and illustrations by Mahlon Blaine).
These editions were mainly put out by unscrupulous publisher
Samuel Roth
Samuel Roth (1893–1974) was an American publisher and writer. Described as an "all-around schemer",
he was the plaintiff in ''Roth v. United States'' (1957). The case was a Supreme Court ruling on freedom of sexual expression and whose minor ...
. Taking advantage that banned books did not receive
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
protection in the U.S., Roth put out a series of supposedly copyrighted editions (which were never registered with the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
) which altered the text and added illustrations—line drawings and photographs—which were not by Prin. After 1955, Roth appended an extra 10 chapters falsely credited to Prin twenty-three years after the original book, including an invented visit to New York where she met with Roth himself. None of this was true. The original autobiography finally saw a new translation and publication in 1996.
For a few years during the 1930s, Prin owned the Montparnasse cabaret L'Oasis, which was later renamed Chez Kiki. Her
music hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...
performances in black hose and garters included crowd-pleasing risqué songs, which were uninhibited, yet inoffensive. She later departed Paris to avoid the occupying German army during World War II, which entered the city in June 1940. She did not return to live in the city immediately after the war.
Death and legacy
Prin died at the age of fifty-one on 29 April 1953 after collapsing outside her flat in Montparnasse, apparently of complications of alcoholism or drug dependence. At the time of her death, she weighed . A large crowd of artists and admirers attended her Paris funeral and followed the procession to her interment in the ''
Cimetière parisien de Thiais
The cimetière parisien de Thiais is one of three Parisian cemeteries ''extra muros'', and is located in the commune of Thiais, in the Val-de-Marne department, in the Île-de-France region.
History
The cemetery was opened in October 1929 and is ...
''. Her tomb identifies her as: "Kiki, 1901–1953, singer, actress, painter, Queen of Montparnasse".
In the wake of her death,
''Life'' magazine featured a three-page obituary of Prin in its 29 June 1953 edition, concluding with a memory from one of her friends who said: "We laughed, my God how we laughed."
Tsuguharu Foujita
was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan, who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. At the height of his fame in Paris, during the 1920s, he was known for his portraits of nudes using an opalescen ...
remarked that, with Kiki's death, the glorious days of Montparnasse were buried forever.
Long after her death, Prin remains the embodiment of the outspokenness, audacity, and creativity that marked the interwar period of life in Montparnasse. She represents a strong artistic force in her own right as a woman.
In 1989, biographers
Billy Klüver
Johan Wilhelm Klüver (November 11, 1927 – March 20, 2004) was an electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories who founded Experiments in Art and Technology. Klüver lectured extensively on art and technology and social issues to be address ...
and Julie Martin called her "one of the century's first truly independent women". In her honor, a
daylily
A daylily or day lily is a flowering plant in the genus ''Hemerocallis'' , a member of the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae. Despite the common name, it is not in fact a lily. Gardening enthusiasts and horticulturists have long ...
has been named ''Kiki de Montparnasse''.
On May 14, 2022, ''
Le Violon d'Ingres
''Le Violon d'Ingres'' (French for ''Ingres's Violin'') is a black-and-white photograph created by American visual artist Man Ray in 1924. It is one of his best-known photographs and of surrealist photography. The picture was first published in th ...
'', which depicts Prin's back overlaid with a violin's
f-holes
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board.
Sound holes have different shapes:
* round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins;
* F-holes in instruments from the v ...
, sold for $12.4 million, setting a record as the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction.
Gallery
Julien Mandel
Julien Mandel (1893 – 1961) was a Jewish photographer and filmmaker. He was one of the best-known commercial photographers of female nudes of the early twentieth century. He worked in Paris and his signature photography became known in the 191 ...
">
File:Julian Mandel 6.jpg, c. 1920
File:Erotic postcard by Julien Mandel.jpg, Postcard, c. 1920
File:Mädchen mit Vase by J. Mandel.jpg
File:Marionnette à fils by J. Mandel.tif
File:Akt mit Spiegel by Julien Mandel.jpg, Postcard
*
*
*
* ''Kiki's Memoirs'' (1996) translation by Samuel Putnam (original ed. published by J. Corti, Paris)
* ''Souvenirs'', introduction by
, forward and notes by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin, translation by Dominique Lablanche, Hazan, 1999.
* ''Souvenirs retrouvés'', preface by Serge Plantureux, José Corti, 2005.
* ''Kiki's Memoirs'' (2009)
translation by José Pazó Espinosa (in Spanish – published by Nocturna)
* ''Kiki Souvenirs, 1929'' (2005) translation by N. Semoniff (in Russian – published by Salamandra P.V.V., 2011)
* ''Kiki's Memoirs, 1930'' (2006) translation by N. Semoniff (in Russian – published by Salamandra P.V.V., 2011)