Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements; and one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art as a whole. The National Observer suggested that, “of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man.”
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media.
Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian descent.
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros intended to arouse similar feelings in readers. This contrasts erotica, which focuses more specifically on sexual feelings. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. Much erotic literature features erotic art, illustrating the text.
Gino Severini was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of media, including mosaic and fresco. He showed his work at major exhibitions, including the Rome Quadrennial, and won art prizes from major institutions.
The Société des Artistes Indépendants or Salon des Indépendants was formed in Paris on 29 July 1884. The association began with the organization of massive exhibitions in Paris, choosing the slogan "sans jury ni récompense". Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders. For the following three decades their annual exhibitions set the trends in art of the early 20th century, along with the Salon d'Automne. This is where artworks were often first displayed and widely discussed. World War I brought a closure to the salon, though the Artistes Indépendants remained active. Since 1920, the headquarters has been located in the vast basements of the Grand Palais.
Georges Pichard was a French comics artist, known for numerous magazine covers, serial publications and albums, stereotypically featuring partially exposed voluptuous women.
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.
René Depestre is a Haitian poet and former communist activist. He is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. He lived in Cuba as an exile from the Duvalier regime for many years and was a founder of the Casa de las Américas publishing house. He is best known for his poetry.
Pascal Pia, born Pierre Durand, was a French writer, journalist, illustrator and scholar. He also used the pseudonyms Pascal Rose, Pascal Fely and others.
Maurice François Alfred Martin van Miële, better known by his pseudonym Martin van Maële, was a French illustrator of early 20th century literature. He is renowned for his work in the field of erotic literature.
Maurice Princet was a French mathematician and actuary who played a role in the birth of cubism. He was an associate of Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Jean Metzinger, and Marcel Duchamp. He is known as "le mathématicien du cubisme".
Les Onze Mille Verges ou les Amours d'un hospodar is a pornographic novel by French author Guillaume Apollinaire, published in 1907 over his initials "G.A.". The title contains a play on the Catholic veneration of the "Eleven thousand Virgins", the martyred companions of Saint Ursula, replacing the word vierge (virgin) with verge (rod) due to a slip of the tongue by the protagonist and as an omen of his fate. The use of the word verge may also be considered as a pun for it is used as a vulgarism for the male member.
Portrait de l'éditeur Eugène Figuière, also referred to as The Publisher Eugene Figuiere, is a painting created in 1913 by the artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. This work was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, 1913 and Moderni Umeni, 45th Exhibition of SVU Mánes in Prague 1914, and several major exhibitions the following years. Executed in a highly Cubist idiom, the work nevertheless retains recognizable elements relative to its subject matter. The painting, reproduced in Comœdia, 14 November 1913, represents Eugène Figuière. Head of his own publishing company, Figuière strove to be identified with every modern development. In 1912 he published the first and only manifesto on Cubism entitled Du "Cubisme", written by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. In 1913 Figuière published Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques , by Guillaume Apollinaire. The painting, purchased directly from the artist in 1948, is in the permanent collection of the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, France.
L'Homme au hamac, also referred to as Man in a Hammock, is a painting created in 1913 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. The work was exhibited at Moderni Umeni, SVU Mánes, Vystava, Prague, February – March 1914, no. 41; and Der Sturm, Berlin, July – August 1914. The painting was reproduced in Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris-Journal, July 4, 1914 ; and Albert Gleizes, L'Épopée, Le Rouge et le Noir, October 1929, p. 81. Stylistically Gleizes' painting exemplifies the principle of mobile perspective laid out in Du "Cubisme", written by himself and French painter Jean Metzinger. Evidence suggests that the man reclining in the hammock is indeed Jean Metzinger. Formerly in the collection of Metzinger, the first owner of the painting, Man in a Hammock forms part of the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
Le Fumeur, or Man with Pipe, is a Cubist painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. It has been suggested that the sitter depicted in the painting represents either Guillaume Apollinaire or Max Jacob. The work was exhibited in the spring of 1914 at the Salon des Indépendants, Paris, Champ-de-Mars, March 1–April 30, 1914, no. 2289, Room 11. A photograph of Le Fumeur was published in Le Petit Comtois, 13 March 1914, for the occasion of the exhibition. In July 1914 the painting was exhibited in Berlin at Herwarth Walden’s Galerie Der Sturm, with works by Albert Gleizes, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Jacques Villon.
Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques, is a book written by Guillaume Apollinaire between 1905 and 1912, published in 1913. This was the third major text on Cubism; following Du "Cubisme" by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger (1912); and André Salmon, Histoire anecdotique du cubisme (1912).
Louis Perceau was a 20th-century French polygraph. He used several pseudonyms including Helpey bibliographe poitevin, Dr. Ludovico Hernandez, Alexandre de Vérineau, Un vieux journaliste, Radeville et Deschamps, marquis Boniface de Richequeue, sometimes jointly with Fernand Fleuret.
The Enfer is a special department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. It is a special collection of books and manuscripts of an erotic or pornographic character which, because of their rarity and value, may be seen only with authorization. The Enfer was established 1836–1844 and is one of the most famous Private Case collections. In 2013, the Enfer contained about 2,600 volumes, dating from the 16th century to the present.
The Nouvelle Union Populaire écologique et sociale is a left-wing political coalition in France led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Formed on May Day in 2022, it includes La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party (PS), the French Communist Party (PCF), Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), Ensemble! (E!), Génération.s (G.s), as well as their respective smaller partners. The Republican and Socialist Left, which had previously announced its own coalition, the Federation of the Republican Left, announced that it and its member parties would be willing to negotiate entry into NUPES the day after the pact was formalised.
