Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [151]
Germaine Albert-Birot, the editor of one such magazine, called Sic, persuaded Apollinaire to write a play with Cubist sets and costumes. Titled Les Mamelles de Terésias (“The Breasts of Terésias”), it is about a woman who becomes a man. Onstage, “Thérèse” performed this transformation when she opened her blouse and gas-filled balloons rose into the air. The most significant thing about the play was its subtitle, Drame sur-réaliste. Apollinaire intended sur-réaliste to be a synonym for supernaturaliste, but in the 1920s, the word was adopted by a group of artists whose work was characterized by fantasy and elements of the subconscious. Surrealists (as they became known), like many younger poets and painters, found Apollinaire’s work and spirit an inspiration.
Tragically, he would not be there to enjoy the acclaim. At the beginning of 1918, Apollinaire contracted pneumonia, which sent him back to the hospital, where he learned that the government had turned down his nomination for the Legion of Honor. Despite his status as a war hero (he had received the Croix de Guerre), the affair of the stolen statuettes, and the suspicion that he might have had something to do with the theft of the Mona Lisa, had not been forgotten.
He did not let the disappointment dampen his zest for love and work. He resumed his former acquaintance with a young, red-haired woman who was completely unconnected to the world of art. The final poem in his last book, Caligrammes, was about her. In May they were married in a parish church near his apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Still producing new work, he began to cough heavily in October. An influenza epidemic would kill millions worldwide during the next year, and Apollinaire was among its first victims. He died on November 9, and two days later, news arrived of the armistice that ended the war. As friends came to view his body, laid out on a bed in the newlyweds’ apartment, crowds thronged the streets, shouting “À bas Guillaume!” (“Down with William,” referring to the German emperor, Wilhelm II, who was forced to abdicate after the war).
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The years since the theft of the Mona Lisa had seen Picasso’s artistic reputation increase. Kahnweiler arranged for his work to be exhibited in Munich, Berlin, Cologne, Prague, and New York. In March 1914, a group of Parisian investor-collectors held a sale of contemporary paintings it had acquired over the previous ten years. The newspapers covered the event closely. A still life by Matisse brought 5,000 francs, quite a sum considering that works by Van Gogh and Gauguin went for less. But when a painting from Picasso’s rose period, Family of Saltimbanques, went under the hammer for 11,500 francs to a buyer from Munich, heads turned in the art world. Picasso would never know poverty again.
Picasso’s love life had thrived as well. He broke with Fernande in 1912 after she had an affair with an Italian painter, though some speculated that was a relief to Picasso, who was already in love with Marcelle Humbert, a circus performer whose real name was Eva Gouel. At about the same time, he began to paste objects such as chair caning and newspaper headlines directly onto the canvas, creating (along with Braque, who accompanied him in this as well as cubism) works known as collages. Increasingly those headlines reflected violence and the ominous approach of war.
After the war began, Braque, a Frenchman, joined the army, along with many others from the original bande á Picasso. Like Apollinaire, Braque was wounded in battle, and when he returned he was no longer as creative as he had been; he and Picasso never worked together again. Kahnweiler, a German, had to leave Paris for the duration of the war, making it difficult for Picasso to sell his work. Picasso’s mistress, Eva, had been in poor health for some time and died in December 1915. With