Portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire

Inscriptions: Signed (lower left)

Provenance: Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris (gift of the artist). Jacqueline Apollinaire, Paris (by descent). Christie’s, Paris, 23 May 2007, lot 115 (dated circa 1910)

Literature: P. Pia, Apollinaire, Paris, 1960, face à la p. 79.

P. Cailler, Guillaume Apollinaire, Genève, 1965, no. 105 (reproduced).

R. Shattuck, Selected Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire, New York, 1971, p. 55 (reproduced).

G. Apollinaire, Oeuvres en proses complètes, Paris, 1993, vol. III, p. 87.

A. Hicken, “Apollinaire, Cubism and Orphism”, in: Burlington Magazine, 2002, p. 109, no. 56 (reproduced).

Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten, A Cubism Reader, Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914, The University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 79 (reproduced)

Exhibitions: Paris, Salon des Indépendants, 1910, no. 3636.

Verviers, Société des Beaux-Arts; Gand, Cercle Royal Artistique et Littéraire. 

Bruxelles, Palais des Beaux-Arts, La peinture sous le signe d’Apollinaire, October – December 1950, p. 37, no. 45.

Galerie Art Vivant, Paris, Jean Metzinger, 40 peinture inédites de 1910 à 1952, 15 May – 15 June 1952, no. 39 (dated 1906)

Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Le Cubisme, 1907-1914, January – April 1953, no. 52.

Notes: On 16 October 1911, Guillaume Apollinaire, in La Vie Anecdotique, Mercure de France writes: ‘I am honored of having first served as a model for a Cubist painter, Jean Metzinger, for a portrait exhibited in 1910 at the Salon des Indépendants.’ [J’ai l’honneur d’avoir le premier servi de modèle à un peintre cubiste, Jean Metzinger, pour un portrait qui fut exposé en 1910 au Salon des Indépendants]. Indeed the work was exhibited at the salon, number 3636 in the catalogue, titled Portrait de M. Guillaume Apollinaire. By virtue of the fact that it was exhibited from 18 March to 1 May 1910 it has always been assumed to have been painted in 1910. Testimonial evidence however suggests otherwise, and so too does its descriptive iconography; in reconciliation within the historical context of the artist’s body of work.

This 1908 painting by Metzinger, exhibited for the first time in 1910, is extensively elaborated upon in the Metzinger monograph, Volume I.