Alice Prin

Alice Ernestine Prin, known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was born in Châtillon-sur-Seine in 1901 and died in Paris in 1953. She worked as a model, singer and actress, and became a central figure in the artistic life of Montparnasse between the wars, earning the nickname "Queen of Montparnasse". She matters because she was the muse of many foreign artists living in Paris and because she left a distinctive image of the bohemian life of the 1920s.

She grew up with her maternal grandmother in great poverty and, as a teenager, moved to Paris, where she reunited with her mother and worked as an apprentice and a maid. Her first lover was the painter Maurice Mendjizky, who painted her nude; when her mother found out, she threw her out of the house. With a recognisable style of kohl-lined eyes, red lips and a short bob haircut, she posed for painters such as Soutine, Modigliani, Foujita and Kisling. Her romantic and artistic partner for much of the 1920s was Man Ray, who photographed her hundreds of times; some of these images, such as Le violon d'Ingres, are among the best known works of Surrealism. She also appeared in several experimental short films, including Fernand Léger's Ballet mécanique.

As a painter, she worked in a light, slightly uneven expressionist style, producing portraits, social scenes, landscapes and fantastical animals. In 1927 she held an exhibition of her paintings at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in Paris, which sold out. She signed her works with her nickname and often noted the year. Her autobiography, Memoirs of Kiki, appeared in 1929 with introductions by Hemingway and Foujita, but the American edition was banned and later reprints altered the text and added material that was not hers. The original was not republished until 1996.

During the 1930s she sang in revues and, from 1937, briefly ran the cabaret L'Oasis de Montparnasse. During the German occupation she left Paris and returned only after the war. Her last years were hard: she sang in the street and read palms for tourists. She died in 1953 after collapsing outside her home, probably from complications of alcoholism. Many artists attended her funeral.

Kiki remains a symbol of the frankness, boldness and creativity of her era. In 1989 the biographers Billy Klüver and Julie Martin described her as one of the first truly independent women of the century, and a variety of lily bears her name.