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<\/a>Most readers will not have heard of Kiki de Montparnasse, born Alice Prin in 1901, in Ch\u00e2tillon-sur-Seine, about 240 kilometres southeast of Paris, to an unwed mother who wasn\u2019t much into mothering. But most would likely recognize her \u2013 she modeled for many an artist (Alexander Calder, Tsuguharu Foujita, Amedeo Modigliani, to name a few, as well as Maurice Mendjizky, with whom she fell in love for awhile). And, during her seven-year relationship with surrealist photographer Man Ray (who thought himself more of a painter), she posed for him many a time. In 2022, one of Ray\u2019s most famous images of her, called \u201cLe Violon d\u2019Ingres,\u201d sold for $12.4 million, the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction.<\/p>\nYet, what of her own work, her talents, her accomplishments?<\/p>\n
Cultural historian Mark Braude gives Kiki her overdue due with his latest book, Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love and Rivalry in 1920s Paris<\/i>, which Braude will discuss with University of British Columbia professor emeritus of history Chris Friedrichs at the JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 24, in an event called Art & History: Paris, Jews and Surrealism.<\/p>\n
While Kiki wasn\u2019t Jewish, so many of the artists she hung out with were, including, of course, Ray, who was born Emmanuel \u201cManny\u201d Radnitzky. If she hadn\u2019t lived among the who\u2019s who of Dada and Surrealist art, perhaps she wouldn\u2019t have been overshadowed, mostly forgotten. She was a commanding performer, she sold at least a few dozen paintings, wrote a memoir, appeared in films. By all accounts, a success. But, as \u201cQueen of Montparnasse,\u201d the early-1900s bohemian paradise in Paris, Kiki lived on the more wild side. Addiction would speed along her end \u2013 she died in 1953, only 51 years old. Another reason, perhaps, that her legacy was not as lasting.<\/p>\n
As much as Braude\u2019s account is about Kiki, it is about the time in which she lived and the people among whom she lived. Because, \u201cas she experienced her era and channeled that experience into her art, Kiki shared drinks and cigarettes and ideas with many of the people who would shape how their century saw and thought and spoke: Modigliani, Stein, Picasso, Barnes, Matisse, Guggenheim, Calder, Duchamp, Breton, Cocteau, Flanner, Hemingway,\u201d writes Braude. \u201cAnd Man Ray, whose emergence as a modern artist must be understood as intimately linked to her own.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Kiki may not have left much physical evidence behind of her influence, it doesn\u2019t mean she wasn\u2019t influential. Living as she did, with whom she did, Braude writes: \u201cEvolving in concert with them, watching them become who they were, challenging them and joking with them, working with them and through them, Kiki, too, played her role in shaping the cultural history of the past hundred years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Braude\u2019s book is not only a fascinating read, but a reminder that none of us is insignificant. Even if our names are lost to history, we matter, we impact others and the world around us.<\/p>\n