Les Souvenirs de Kiki. Preface de Foujita

KIKI OF MONTPARNESSE, ALICE PRIN, 1920s PARIS

Published by Paris Edite Par Henri Broca 1929

About this Item

First Edition. Text in French. Signed and inscribed the author at the half-title in French: Òa Francis Dickie bon ami, en souvenir de notre vieux Montparnasse. Sympathie de Kiki, Juin 1931Ó. [to Francis Dickie good friend, in memory of our old Montparnasse. Sympathy of Kiki, June 1931] Below her inscription Kiki has drawn a nude self-portrait in which she is up to her waist in water with a small drawing of a sailor in the foreground and a sailboat in the background with birds flying overhead. She has signed her drawing ÒKiKiÓ. One of 250 unnumbered copies. Text in French. Original tan wrappers with dark green tape to the spine with a small black & white reproduction of a painting of Kiki by Moise Kisling to the front cover. Illustrated with photographs and paintings by Man Ray, Kisling, Tsuguharu Foujita, Per Krohg, Hermine David, etc. and paintings by Kiki. A lightly toned copy with some aging, edge wear, and faint spotting to the edges of the first few pages. This is the memoir of Alice Prin (1901 - 1953), better known as Kiki of Montparnasse, a French model, chanteuse, memoirist and painter during the Jazz Age. She flourished in, and helped define the liberated culture of Paris during the so-called Annees folles [crazy years]. She became one of the most famous models of the 20th century and in the history of avant-garde art. In 1921 she met the American visual artist Man Ray, with whom she had a stormy eight-year relationship, during which time she became his muse as well as the subject of some of his best known images, including the surrealist image Le Violon dÕIngress and Noire et blanche [Black and White]. A painter in her own right, Kiki had a sold-out exhibition of her paintings in 1927 at the Galerie au Sacre Printemps in Paris. Long after her death, she remains the embodiment of the outspokenness, audacity, and creativity that marked the interwar period of life in Montparnasse. Very scarce.

Seller Inventory # 25344E

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Les Souvenirs de Kiki. Preface de Foujita
• Publisher: Paris Edite Par Henri Broca 1929
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)