`A reality star for surreal times'
A muse for artists including Man Ray, Kiki was an intriguing personality in her own right
A century ago, a young woman moved from the French countryside to Paris and became a muse to some of the most celebrated artists of the early 20th century.
But Kiki de Montparnasse, born Alice Prin, was much more than just an inspiration for others, says Mark Braude in his new biography, Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love and Rivalry in 1920s Paris.
We talked to the Vancouver-based author, who has also written about Napoleon and Monte Carlo, about his “exuberantly entertaining” (New York Times) book and Kiki's relevance today:
Q: The book seems to be getting a lot of attention, including a review in the New York Times and an interview with you on the newspaper's Book Review podcast. Is that a surprise? A: I'm just totally psyched. For me it's all about being in my little room writing away and the rest, like being in the New York Times, feels like gravy. I didn't know what to expect.
Q: In May, Man Ray's Le Violon d'Ingres, the famous photo of Kiki with the f-holes of a violin on her back, was sold for $12.4 million, roughly doubling the estimated sale price and becoming the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction. It seems like good timing for this biography. A: It's totally fortuitous. I turned in the manuscript a year or so before another auction for another Man Ray photo of Kiki set another record, and then just as it was about to come out there was this other auction. Man Ray's having a moment, surrealism's having a moment, and maybe Kiki's having a moment. I was surprised at the hunger for that photograph. But it speaks to the power of that image 100 years later.
Q: Can you make a case for Kiki's relevance today?
A: One of the things that I was so struck by when learning about Kiki was how many different venues she was excelling in as an artist. She was a dazzling cabaret performer, she was a painter, she was an illustrator, she was a silent film star. Most impressively she wrote this memoir that was front-page news in France when it was published. It's a very smart piece of writing. It all speaks to this idea that Kiki, without knowing it, helps to invent the idea of presenting your life as a story to be consumed across several media and this blurring between private and public life as a performer. It's all interesting for her audience. She's a reality star for surreal times. She wouldn't have thought in terms of self-branding or multi-hyphenate, but she's kind of doing that. She's crafted this persona and can present it to her audience in many ways at once.
Q: You describe what it might have been like seeing Kiki perform her cabaret act in the book. Any desire to write a novel?
A: No, there's no way I could write a novel. If you told me
Character X and Character Y walk into a room and something had to happen I could not tell you one interesting thing that could happen. I'm very, very happy in my medium.
Q: Did you have to travel to do research?
A: There was some work in Paris. I had access to the Stanford
University library, which had a great collection of French historical archives. Once we moved to Vancouver, UBC and VPL were huge resources. I like to have as much as possible the tactile thing. One of the big finds for me was one of the original copies of her memoir. It's a short little book. But I think because there were only a few hundred she probably handled
it herself, so it was like a talisman in a way. And then it turns out that 1930 edition with a preface by Hemingway, which is much more valuable, was just sitting there in general circulation at UBC. I checked it out and had it for a while then very sheepishly told Special Collections, “Hey, by the way, you have this super-amazing book that needs to come out of general circ.”
Q: Do you know what the next subject of your writing will be?
A: Not at all. I like to stay pretty close to where I'm comfortable through my academic training, which is in 20th century French history. So I'll dig around and see what pops up and have a bunch of bad ideas along the way. And hopefully one will stick.