Kiki Man Ray

***One of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2022******One of The New York Time's 100 Notable Books of 2022***'Exuberantly entertaining' NYT Book Review'Mark Braude's writing and subject make this book irresistible, as was Kiki herself.' Jim Jarmusch'A delightful, marvelously readable, meticulously-researched romp of a book, Kiki Man Ray brings to life not just the kaleidoscopically talented Kiki herself, but the endlessly fascinating Montparnasse milieu over which she reigned.' Whitney Scharer, author of THE AGE OF LIGHTThough many have never heard her name, Alice Prin - Kiki de Montparnasse - was the icon of 1920s Paris. She captivated as a ground-breaking nightclub performer, wrote a bestselling memoir, sold out exhibitions of her paintings, and shared drinks and ideas with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim, and Marcel Duchamp. She also shepherded along the career of a then-unknown American photographer: Man Ray.Following Kiki in the years between 1921 and 1929, when she lived and worked with Man Ray, Kiki Man Ray charts their complicated entanglement and reveals how Man Ray - always the unabashed careerist - went on to become one of the most famous photographers of the twentieth century, enjoying wealth and prestige, while Kiki's legacy was lost.But this isn't a story of an overbearing male genius and his defeated muse. During the 1920s it was Kiki, not Man Ray, who was the brighter of the two rising stars and a powerful figure among the close-knit community of models, painters, writers and café wastrels who made their homes in gritty Montparnasse. Following the couple as they created art, struggled for power and competed for fame, Kiki Man Ray illuminates for the first time Kiki's seminal influence on the culture of 1920s Paris, and challenges ideas about artists and muses, and the lines separating the two.'Kiki de Montparnasse was more than a muse - she was a vivacious, independent woman whose talent and magnetism helped make Paris the center of the art world in the 1920s. In Mark Braude's riveting cultural history, the Queen of Montparnasse rises again. This is a lively and compassionate tribute to the chanteuse, model, and portraitist who held center stage in her life, and who inspired some of the finest Surrealist art of the twentieth century.' Heather Clark, author of Pulitzer Prize-finalist Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

A lively study of [Kiki de Montparnasse] who exemplified [a] cocktail of high spirits and a heedless self-destruction., [Kiki is] a vibrant force in a colorful world - and the heart of Braude's history. A rich, affectionate look at bohemian Paris., Mark Braude focuses on Kiki de Montparnasse and Man Ray . . . immersing the reader in a world where everyone was pushing their creativity in unimaginable directions., Exuberantly entertaining . . . A riveting glimpse into the absinthe-fuelled Parisian jazz age, Finally, a detailed and entertaining account of Alice Prin, aka Kiki de Montparnasse, and her artistic and romantic relationship with Man Ray. Best known as a popular (and usually nude) artists' model, Kiki was a singer and performer, a painter, a writer, and the central female instigator for the avant-garde demimonde of Paris in the 1920s. Mark Braude's writing and subject make this book irresistible, as was Kiki herself.

Mark Braude is the author of two histories, Making Monte Carlo and The Invisible Emperor. Braude holds an MA in French Studies and a PhD in Modern European History and Visual Culture (his focus was the intersection of modern art and expat life in France), and he was previously a lecturer of Art History, History and French at Stanford. He was selected to be a Visiting Fellow at the American Library in Paris, and received two major grants to pursue the writing of Kiki Man Ray. This is, in many ways, the book he was born to write. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and daughters.