Alphonse Allais


Alphonse Allais was a French writer, journalist and humorist. He was also the editor of the Chat Noir, a satirical magazine.

Life

From 1879, Alphonse Allais attended the ″Hydropathic Society″ of Émile Goudeau, from which the school of fumism grew. Evidence of Alphonse Allais's first literary successes was the January 1880 issue of the newspaper ″Hydropat″ entirely dedicated to him, with a caricature on the entire cover. It depicted a blond pharmacist, Alphonse Allais.
Already in the first year of Fumism, Paul Vivien wrote in his "leading" article:

Work

He is the author of many collections of whimsical writings. A poet as much as a humorist, he cultivated the verse form known as holorhyme. For example:
Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,

Parle et bois du gin, ou cent tasses de lait froid.

Allais wrote the earliest known example of a completely silent musical composition. His Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Great Deaf Man of 1897 consists of 24 blank measures. It predates similarly silent but intellectually serious works by John Cage and Erwin Schulhoff by many years. His prose piece "Story for Sara" was translated and illustrated by Edward Gorey.
Allais participated in humorous exhibitions, including those of the Salon des Arts Incohérents of 1883 and 1884, held at the Galerie Vivienne. At these, inspired by his friend Paul Bilhaud's 1882 exhibit of an entirely black painting entitled "Negroes fight in a tunnel", Allais exhibited arguably some of the earliest examples of monochrome painting: for instance his plain white sheet of Bristol paper Première communion de jeunes filles chlorotiques par un temps de neige , and a similar red work Apoplectic Cardinals Harvesting Tomatoes on the Shore of the Red Sea . Allais published his Album primo-avrilesque in 1897, a monograph with seven monochrome artworks, accompanied by the score of his silent funeral march. However, Allais's activity bears more similarity to 20th century Dada, or Neo-Dada, and particularly the works of the Fluxus group of the 1960s, than to 20th century monochrome painting since Malevich.
While consuming absinthe at café tables, Allais wrote 1600 newspaper and magazine pieces, and co-founded the Club of the Hydropaths. He was a journalist, columnist and editor as well.
A film based on his novel L'Affaire Blaireau appeared in 1958 as Neither Seen Nor Recognized . Earlier versions with the same title as the original novel appeared in 1923 and 1932.
Miles Kington, humorous writer and musician, translated some of Allais' pieces into idiomatic English as The World of Alphonse Allais. In the United States, Doug Skinner has translated sixteen books by Allais, including Captain Cap and his only novel.
Honfleur has a street, rue Alphonse Allais, and a school, Collège Alphonse Allais, named for him. There is a Place Alphonse-Allais in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. The Académie Alphonse-Allais has awarded an annual prize, the Prix Alphonse-Allais, in his honor since 1954.

Discovery

In 2018, the French expert Johann Naldi, a specialist in nineteenth-century art, discovered among a previously unpublished set of seventeen works of Incoherents "Des souteneurs encore dans la force de l'âge et le ventre dans l'herbe boivent de l'absinthe", consisting of a green carriage curtain embellished with a cartel with a title. Executed before 1897, when Allais was compiling his monochroidal experiments in his Album primo-avrilesque, this work is the only monochrome by Alphonse Allais identified to date, classified as a National Treasure on May 7, 2021 by decision of the Ministry of Culture.
In February 2024, the work made its world premiere in the exhibition "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Parigi 1881-1901" at the Palazzo Roverella, in Rovigo, Italy.

Museum

The Alphonse Allais Museum, also called Le Petit Musée, in Honfleur, claiming to be the smallest museum in France, consists of a small collection of "rarities", including the skull of Voltaire at age seventeen and a true piece of a False Cross, as well as inventions such as a special Chinese teacup made for left-handed people, blue, white, and red starch to keep flags flying when there is no wind, black confetti for widows, and so on. The museum was founded on the second floor in Allais' parents' pharmacy in 1999 by the owner of the pharmacy, and moved to a new location in 2019.

Organizations

Two non-profit organizations celebrate Allais:
  • The Association des Amis d'Alphonse Allais, founded in 1934, manages the Allais Museum and promotes young humorists who follow in the spirit of Allais.
  • The Académie Alphonse Allais, created in 1954, Allais' 100th birthday, by Henri Jeanson, like the Académie française, names new members annually and sponsors the "Alphonse Allais" literary prize.

    Principal works

  • À se tordre, 1891
  • Vive la vie !, 1892
  • Deux et deux font cinq, 1895
  • Amours, délices et orgues, 1898
  • L'Affaire Blaireau, 1899
  • Ne nous frappons pas, 1900

    English translations

;Published in the US
  • Feeding Time. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • My Rent Is Due!. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • We Are Not Sheep. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Let's Not Hit Each Other. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Loves, Delights, & Organs. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • 2 + 2 = 5. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Pink and Apple-Green. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • The Alphonse Allais Reader. Compiled and translated by Doug Skinner
  • No Bile!. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Masks. Translated & illustrated by Norman Conquest
  • Long Live Life!. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • I Am Sarcey. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Double Over. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • The Blaireau Affair. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • The Squadron's Umbrella. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Captain Cap: Vol. I. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Captain Cap: Vol. II: The Apparent Symbiosis Between the Boa and Giraffe. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Captain Cap: Vol. III: The Antifilter & Other Inventions. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • Captain Cap: Vol. IV: The Sanatorium of the Future. Translated by Doug Skinner
  • How I Became an Idiot by Francisque Sarcey . Translated by Doug Skinner
  • The Adventures of Captain Cap. Translated by Brian Stableford