{"id":27654,"date":"2023-03-09T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T09:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=27654"},"modified":"2023-03-07T18:44:48","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T18:44:48","slug":"kiki-de-montparnasse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2023\/03\/09\/kiki-de-montparnasse\/","title":{"rendered":"KIKI de Montparnasse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Catel & Bocquet<\/strong>, translated by Nora Mahoney <\/strong>(SelfMadeHero)
\nISBN: 978-1-90683-825-6 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

Like all art students in the 1970s and early 1980s I fell in love with Surrealism and Dada and even had a copy of Man Ray\u2019s print of the naked chick mimicking a cello on a wall for a while. The model was his greatest muse – Kiki of Montparnasse.<\/em><\/p>\n

I revelled in how the image was a clever juxtaposition of idea and image and never gave much thought to the actual woman in the picture. That was a huge mistake, thankfully rectified here in this supremely moving account of the life of an indomitable soul who encapsulated and epitomised an extraordinary era\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Please take heed: this book contains both nudity and nakedness in large amounts. Don\u2019t read it if such drawings might affect you in unwholesome ways\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alice Ernestine Prin<\/em> (2nd<\/sup> October 1901 – 29th<\/sup> April 1953) was born in Ch\u00e2tillon-sur-Seine, C\u00f4te-d’Or. She was a child of shame and poverty, wilful and a bit wild: surviving life amongst the lowest classes. She grew up in northern France in a region of agriculture, heavy industry and especially winemaking: raised by a grandmother and often-visiting godfather<\/em>. Alice had her first drink and danced for inn patrons at ten. It kept happening until her already-disgraced mother abruptly returned in 1913 before the girl was packed off to Paris to learn a trade.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when her life really began.<\/p>\n

That life is traced from cradle to grave in a rapid-fire procession of black-&-white vignettes, that first focuses on her childhood and brushes with education, whilst concentrating on her happy but unconventional family life and relationships.<\/p>\n

Already wise beyond her years in the things that mattered, Alice clashed with a number of employers in crappy jobs – such as bakery assistant or domestic servant – and dreamed of love and adventure, independence and fame\u2026<\/p>\n

She reached her majority just as Europe was changed forever by \u201cThe War to End All Wars\u201d, and was on hand and at the forefront as the entire continent – but especially France – survived the communal mass PTSD dubbed the Ann\u00e9es Folles<\/em> or \u201cCrazy Years\u201d. An era of wild excess, free thought and fresh art and literary exploration, much of it triggered by shock, disenchantment and crumbling social order: the reaction of a generation who thought they were rebuilding themselves and society, but were in fact only gearing up to do it all over again\u2026<\/p>\n

With wounded soldiers everywhere and employment scarce, in 1916 Alice agreed to model for a sculptor buying bread: a scandalous job she at first concealed from her mother. When the outraged matron learned the truth, she disowned her daughter\u2026<\/p>\n

Two years later, she was an occasional singer and dancer and a paid escort too, but poverty was still biting too deep. Modelling was not a highly paid profession and most artists were just as poor as their subjects, but life took an upward turn after she was introduced to a promising prospect named Amedeo Modigliani<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

He showed her to Utrillo<\/em>, and thus to Mendjinsky<\/em> and\u2026<\/p>\n

By 1920 she had remade herself and was known only as \u201cKIKI\u201d: bold, brassy, shamelessly confidant and utterly in command of the close community and artistic colony of defiant non-comformists of Montparnasse. Her star was on the rise and everyone one wanted to capture her in their own way. Her intimate associations would include Sanyu<\/em>, Cha\u00efm Sountine<\/em>, Jean<\/em> Cocteau<\/em>, Julie Mandel<\/em>, Constant<\/em> Detr\u00e9<\/em>, Francis Picabia<\/em>, Arno Breker<\/em>, Alexander Calder<\/em>, Per Krogh<\/em>, Hermine David<\/em>, Pablo Gargallo<\/em>, Tono Salazar<\/em>, John Glassco<\/em>, Mo\u00efse Kisling <\/em>and so many others who would reshape the creative world.<\/p>\n

In 1921 she met her most devoted acolyte in Tsuguharu Foujita<\/em> and the man who would make her immortal: American photographer Man Ray<\/em> (Emmanuel Radnitzky). She had also begun selling her own paintings, starring in numerous surrealist and Dadaist films and even performed in Ferdinand Leger\u2019s Ballet m\u00e9canique <\/em>in 1923\u2026<\/p>\n

Somehow, however, fame never quite equated to fortune, even though in June 1924 Man Ray\u2019s image Le Violon d-Ingres<\/em><\/strong> (Ingre\u2019s Violin) was first published in Surrealist magazine Litt\u00e9rature<\/em><\/strong>, with her astounding energy, creativity and catalogue of innovations and successes acting as a mere spine to form an impression of the woman whose guiding motto was always \u201cbe natural\u201d. In May 2022, an original print of the image sold at auction for $412,400,000.<\/p>\n

In love with fame and too forgiving with her lovers, KIKI flowered through those wild days luxuriating in independence and glamour, approval and rejection, notoriety, renown, and – outside her world and the art world – utter anonymity. Always, though, she lived it on her own terms\u2026<\/p>\n

How that all worked out comprises the majority of this stunningly inviting and compellingly absorbing cartoon biography: an award-winning tale that is the very picture of a rags-to-\u201criches\u201d-to-rags melodrama and one as charming and uncompromising as any carefully constructed work of fiction.<\/p>\n

This sublimely moving episodic dramatised narrative is a tasty wonder in bite-sized pieces and the first multi award-winning collaboration between graphic novelist Catel Muller (Ainsi soit Beno\u00eete Groult<\/strong><\/em>, Adieu Kharkov<\/strong><\/em>, Lucie s\u2019en soucie<\/strong><\/em>, Le Sang des Valentines<\/strong><\/em>, Jos\u00e9phine Baker<\/strong>, Olympe de Gouges<\/strong><\/em>, Alice Guy<\/strong>) and crime novelist, screenwriter, biographer\/comics writer Jos\u00e9-Louis Bocquet (Sur la ligne blanche<\/strong><\/em>, M\u00e9moires de l\u2019espion<\/strong><\/em>, Panzer Panik<\/strong><\/em>, Jos\u00e9phine Baker<\/strong>, Olympe de Gouges<\/strong><\/em>, Anton Six<\/strong><\/em>, <\/em>Alice Guy<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The result is an exceptionally entertaining, engaging and informative account which is supplemented by a vast supporting structure of extras, beginning with a heavily illustrated and highly informative \u2018Chronology\u2019<\/em> tracing in minute detail all the pivotal events in KIKI\u2019s short sharp life, which never changed the world but certain embraced and enjoyed it\u2026<\/p>\n

That\u2019s further augmented by \u2018Biographical Notes\u2019<\/em> offering scholarly character portraits in prose and sketch form: all key historical figures impacting the model\u2019s life, including Cha\u00efm Sountine<\/em>, Amedeo Modigliani<\/em>, Mo\u00efse Kisling<\/em>, Tsuguharu Foujita<\/em>, Henri-Pierre Roch<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>, Man Ray<\/em>, Marie Vassilieff<\/em>, Pablo Picasso<\/em>, Tristan Tzara<\/em>, Robert Desnos<\/em>, Andr<\/em>\u00e9<\/em> Breton<\/em>, Marcel Duchamp<\/em>, Trieze<\/em>, Ivan Mosjoukine<\/em>, Jean<\/em> Cocteau<\/em>, Henri Broca<\/em>, Lee Miller<\/em>, Ernest Hemingway<\/em>, Jamblan<\/em>, and Andr<\/em>\u00e9<\/em> Larocque<\/em>, and a Filmography of the movies researchers have since confirmed and acknowledged, and a colossal \u2018Bibliography\u2019<\/em> of books about her.
\n\u00a9 2011 SelfMadeHero. Illustrated by Catel. Written by Jos\u00e9-Louis Bocquet. All rights reserved. Digital edition \u00a9 May 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Catel & Bocquet, translated by Nora Mahoney (SelfMadeHero) ISBN: 978-1-90683-825-6 (TPB\/Digital edition) Like all art students in the 1970s and early 1980s I fell in love with Surrealism and Dada and even had a copy of Man Ray\u2019s print of the naked chick mimicking a cello on a wall for a while. The model … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “KIKI de Montparnasse”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,299,122,125,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptations","category-feminism-sexual-politics","category-historical","category-humour","category-satirepolitics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7c2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27658,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27654\/revisions\/27658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}