Artist Quarter: Modigliani, Montmartre & Montparnasse, Paperback

What were Montmartre and Montparnasse really like in their heyday, roughly between 1904, when the youthful Picasso had just arrived on the Hill of Martyrs, and 1920, when Amedeo Modigliani, justly called "the prince of Bohemians," died of consumption and dissipation in Montparnasse? This book, written by an Englishman who lived in Montmartre for 30 years and knew its famous habitu s intimately, gives a vivid description. It reveals the truth behind the many legends, is packed with authentic stories about writers and painters whose names are now household words, and contains much hitherto unpublished information about the life and career of Modigliani, obtained from his family and friends. Much of the text was written in Montmartre amid the scenes described, and after personal consultation with survivors of the great days when Fr d presided over the Lapin Agile and Libion, patron of the Caf de la Rotonde, was beginning to rival him in Montparnasse. It is the most complete account which has yet been written in English of the birth of Cubism and other contemporary movements in modern painting, and of the lives and loves that started them.

About the Author:

Charles Douglas was the pseudonym of two writers. Charles Beadle (1881-1944) was a successful adventure writer. On his return from Africa in 1904 he lived in Paris, in the thick of Bohemia. Douglas Goldring (1887-1960) was at the heart of literary life in London before First World War, I working with Ford Madox Ford, Wyndham Lewis and D. H. Lawrence, among others.