*** NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022 *** NEW YORKER, ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 *** HARPER’S BAZAAR 100, 2022 *** AMERICAN LIBRARY IN PARIS BOOK AWARD, LONG LIST *** VINE AWARD, SHORT LIST *** 

Exuberantly entertaining. –New York Times

[A] heady romp through the galleries and nightclubs of interwar France. –Vogue

Exquisitely crafted. -Wall Street Journal

Mark Braude’s writing and subject make this book irresistible, as was Kiki herself. —Jim Jarmusch

[A] splendid new biography. -Associated Press

Absorbing and insightful. -Boston Globe

Informed and atmospheric. -Sydney Morning Herald

Spirited and thoroughly researched. –Times Literary Supplement

Vibrant prose as beguiling as Kiki herself. –Toronto Star

Gripping, entertaining and very readable. –Die Tageszeitung

A dazzling portrait of Paris’s forgotten artist and cabaret star, whose incandescent life asks us to see the history of modern art in new ways.

 

In  freewheeling 1920s Paris, Kiki de Montparnasse captivated as a nightclub performer, sold out gallery showings of her paintings, starred in Surrealist films, and shared drinks and ideas with the likes of Jean Cocteau and Marcel Duchamp. Her best-selling memoir—featuring an introduction by Ernest Hemingway—made front-page news in France and was immediately banned in America. All before she turned 30.

Kiki was once the symbol of bohemian Paris. But if she is remembered today, it is only for posing for several now-celebrated male artists, including Modigliani and Calder, but especially for Man Ray. Why has Man Ray’s legacy endured while Kiki has become a footnote?

Kiki and Man Ray met in 1921 during a chance encounter at a café. What followed was an explosive decade-long connection, both professional and romantic, during which the couple grew and experimented as artists, competed for fame, and created many of the shocking images that cemented Man Ray’s reputation as one of the great artists of the modern era. The works they made together, including the Surrealist icons Le Violon d’Ingres and Noire et blanche, now set records at auctions.

Charting their volatile relationship, historian Mark Braude illuminates for the first time Kiki’s seminal influence not only on Man Ray’s art, but on the culture of 1920s Paris and beyond. As provocative and magnetically irresistible as Kiki herself, Kiki Man Ray is the story of an exceptional life that will challenge ideas about artists and muses—and the lines separating the two.

LEARN MORE

MARK BRAUDE is the author of Kiki Man Ray, The Invisible Emperor, and Making Monte Carlo. His books have been translated into seven languages. Kiki Man Ray was one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2022 and named to Best of 2022 lists by The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, and others.

Mark has been a visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, and an NEH Public Scholar. He holds degrees from the University of Southern California, New York University, and the University of British Columbia. He lives in Vancouver with his family.

Hear Mark being interviewed by The New York Times Book Review here.

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