André Salmon
André Salmon was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal.
Biography
André Salmon was born in Paris, in the XI arrondissement, the fourth child of Émile-Frédéric Salmon, a sculptor and etcher, and Sophie-Julie Cattiaux, daughter of a founder of the Radical Socialist Party. Often assumed to come from a Jewish family, they were in fact secular Republicans, frequently in financial difficulty, and moved several times. André Salmon claimed in a letter to the editor of Le Crapouillot, now in a private collection, that his family descended from the Renaissance poet Jean Salmon Macrin, whose position in the court of Francis I may have indicated that his forebears were not Jewish. However, there were Jews in France at this time.Salmon's education was neglected, although he received some tuition from the Parnassian poet Gaston de Raisme, a friend of François Coppée. From 1897 to 1902 he stayed in St-Petersburg, first with his parents and then as an assistant in the chancellery of the French consulate.
In 1902 Salmon returned to France for military service but was dismissed after a few months due to his weak physical condition. In the first decade of the 20th century, he mixed with literary circles of Paris' Latin Quarter. Then he met a young, then unknown poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and with a group of young artists, they formed an artistic group.
In 1904 he moved into the Bateau-Lavoir and lived there with Picasso, Max Jacob, and Apollinaire. He lived a Bohemian life for several years until he fell in love with Jeanne Blazy-Escarpette. He found work as a journalist with L'Intransigeant and also contributed to Le Soleil. He married Jeanne on 13 July 1909 and settled with her on rue Rousselet in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.
During World War I Salmon enlisted in the army as a volunteer and served in the trenches. He was invalided in 1916 and returned to Paris where he became a factotum on the journal L'Éveil of Jacques Dhur. Salmon organized the exhibition L'Art Moderne en France from 16–31 July 1916 for the wealthy fashion designer Paul Poiret. Salmon gave "26 Avenue d'Antin" as the address and called the exhibition the "Salon d'Antin". Artists included Pablo Picasso, who showed Les Demoiselles d'Avignon for the first time, Amedeo Modigliani, Moïse Kisling, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate and Marie Vassilieff.
Another of Poiret's exhibitions, also organized by Salmon, was La Collection particulière de M. Paul Poiret, from 26 April to 12 May 1923.
In the following years, Salmon continued to work as a journalist for works such as L'Europe nouvelle and La Paix sociale, while publishing poems, short stories, critiques, and essays. From 1928 Salmon worked for Le Petit Parisien as a court reporter. In the 1930s he ran into financial difficulties, while his wife became increasingly dependent on opium and he was forced publish in such lesser periodicals as Paris Sex-Appeal. Salmon was sent to Spain by the Petit Parisien to report on the Spanish Civil War from the Francoist side. His reports, deeply critical of the Fascists, were censored by the paper.
During World War II he was sent to Beirut as a war correspondent. After the fall of France, he made his way back via Marseille to Paris, where he found his wife struggling to survive. He rejoined Le Petit Parisien, but avoided any controversial subjects, and was forced to defend himself against attacks from the far-Right who accused him of being a Jew and a supporter of "degenerate art".
After the Liberation of France Salmon was sentenced to five years of "national indignity" for his work as a journalist in occupied France and had to publish under a pseudonym.
His wife died on 1 January 1949. On 29 October 1953, he remarried. In November 1961 he moved from Paris to Sanary, where he had built a small house in 1937. In 1964 Salmon was awarded the Grand Prix for poetry by the French Academy.
He died on 12 March 1969 at his home in Provence.
Works
Poetry
Poèmes, Vers et prose, 1905Féeries, Vers et prose, 1907Le Calumet, Falque, 1910Prikaz, Paris, Éditions de La Sirène, 1919C'est une belle fille! Chronique du vingtième siècle, Albin Michel, 1920Le Livre et la Bouteille, Camille Bloch éditeur, 1920L'Âge de l'Humanité, Paris, Gallimard, 1921Ventes d'Amour, Paris, À la Belle Édition, chez François Bernouard, 1922Peindre, Paris, Éditions de la Sirène, 1921Créances 1905–1910. Paris, Gallimard, 1926Métamorphoses de la harpe et de la harpiste, Éditions des Cahiers Libres, 1926Vénus dans la balance, Éditions des Quatre Chemins, 1926Tout l'or du monde, Paris, Aux éditions du Sagittaire, chez Simon Kra, coll. Les Cahiers nouveaux, n. 36, 1927Carreaux 1918–1921, Paris, Gallimard, 1928Saints de glace, Paris, Gallimard, 1930Troubles en Chine, René Debresse éditeur, 1935Saint André, Paris, Gallimard, 1936Odeur de poésie, Marseille, Robert Laffont, 1944Les Étoiles dans l'encrier, Paris, Gallimard, 1952Vocalises, Paris, Pierre Seghers, 1957Créances, 1905–1910, followed by Carreaux 1918–1921, Paris, Gallimard, 1968Carreaux et autres poèmes, preface by Serge Fauchereau, Paris, Poésie/Gallimard, 1986Books and short stories
Tendres canailles, Paris, Librairie Ollendorff, 1913, and Paris, Gallimard, 1921Monstres choisis, Paris, Gallimard, 1918Mœurs de la Famille Poivre, Geneva, Éditions Kundig, 1919Le Manuscrit trouvé dans un chapeau, Société littéraire de France, 1919, and Paris, Stock, 1924La Négresse du Sacré-Cœur, Paris, Gallimard, 1920, 2009, inspired by Aïcha Goblet.Bob et Bobette en ménage, Paris, Albin Michel, 1920C'est une belle fille, Paris, Albin Michel, 1920L'Entrepreneur d'illuminations, Paris, Gallimard, 1921L'Amant des Amazones, Éditions de la Banderole, 1921Archives du Club des Onze, Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1924Une orgie à Saint-Pétersbourg, Paris, Aux éditions du Sagittaire, chez Simon Kra, La Revue européenne, n. 13, 1925Comme un homme, Eugène Figuière ÉditeursNoces exemplaires de Mie Saucée, Henri Paul JonquièresLe Monocle à deux coups, Paris, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1968Critiques, essays, memoirs
La Jeune Peinture française, Paris, Albert Messein, 1912, Collection des TrenteOluf ''Hartmann, Dix eaux-fortes, avec une notice biographique de Ernst Goldschmidt Histoires de Boches, with drawings by Guy Dollian. Paris, Société littéraire de France, 1917La Jeune Sculpture française, Paris, Albert Messein, 1919, Collection des TrenteL'Art vivant, Paris, Georges Crès, 1920Propos d'atelier, Paris, Georges Crès, 1922La Révélation de Georges Seurat, Brussels, Éditions Sélection, 1921Cézanne, Paris, Stock, 1923André Derain, Paris, Gallimard, 1924Modigliani, Les Quatre chemins, 1926Kisling, Éditions des Chroniques du Jour, 1927Henri Rousseau, dit le Douanier, Paris, Georges Crès, 1927Émile Othon Friesz, Éditions des Chroniques du Jour, 1927Chagall, Éditions des Chroniques du Jour, 1928L'Art russe moderne, Éditions Laville, 1928Léopold-Lévy, Éditions du TriangleOrtiz de Zarate, Éditions du TrianglePicasso, Éditions du TriangleL'érotisme dans l'art contemporain, Éditions Calavas, 1931Le Drapeau noir, 1927Léopold Gottlieb, 1927Voyages au pays des voyantes, Paris, Éditions des PortiquesLe Vagabond de Montparnasse: vie et mort du peintre A. Modigliani, 1939L'Air de la Butte. Souvenirs sans fin, Paris, Les Éditions de la Nouvelle France, 1945Paris tel qu'on l'aime, préface de Jean Cocteau, collectif, 1949Souvenirs sans fin, 3 volumes:- * Première époque, Paris, Gallimard, 1955
- * Deuxième époque, Paris, Gallimard, 1956
- * Troisième époque, Paris, Gallimard, 1961
Theatre
Natchalo, mise en scène Henri Burguet, 7 April 1922, Théâtre des ArtsDeux hommes, une femme- ''Sang d'Espagne''