Correspondance Apollinaire et les peintres (1903-1918)

I have a contract with Gallimard, dated 20 November 2006, to complete a major volume of correspondence between Guillaume Apollinaire and the many artists with whom he was in contact. This is a joint venture with a colleague in Paris, Laurence Campa. We are jointly designated as 'l'Auteur' in the contract and have worked together on the project from its inception.
Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a founding figure of French literary modernism. He was a poet, novelist, playwright, an infantry officer during the Great War and a famously prolific letter writer. During his lifetime, he was best known as an art critic, writing in the national press. He ran his own pre-war arts magazine, 'Les Soirées de Paris', and published in 1913 his book, 'The Cubist Painters' (of which I published a translation and critical edition, with University of California Press, in 2004).
This research project brings together all the correspondence we can locate between Apollinaire and artists. The documentary core of this book is the correspondence received by Apollinaire, from over 800 diverse correspondents, which, via the Apollinaire estate, entered the BNF a few years ago. I had access to parts of this material when it was in private hands, then before and during cataloguing. We now have complete access.
By artists, we mean painters, sculptors, engravers, illustrators, graphic and poster artists. The list of those who will definitely feature includes Braque, Chagall, Chirico, Delaunay, Derain, Diriks, Dufy, Friesz, Gleizes, Gontcharova, Gris, Kandinsky, Kisling, La Fresnaye, Larionov, Laurencin, Léger, Matisse, Picabia, Puvis de Chavannes, Douanier Rousseau, Signac, Survage, Vlaminck, Zadkine... The complete list contains over one hundred artists' names, with over 700 pages of correspondence, on cards and letters of every format. Almost all these documents are entirely unpublished. Picasso is the one major figure excluded, because his correspondence with Apollinaire has already been published, by Gallimard.
To our BNF corpus, we will add letters from other collections and archives, and from various dispersed publications. Many of the letters Apollinaire sent have not survived. We will however provide, where possible, both sides of the dialogue. The letters will be grouped according to artist, in chronological order.
The Introduction, co-written, will place the professional and personal contacts between Apollinaire and the artists in historical and cultural context. Points made will include the cosmopolitan diversity of this community of young artists; the range of subject matter treated in the letters, from gossip and quarrels, to aesthetic theorising, to the everyday concerns of making a living. Gris, for example, first requests Apollinaire's help in selling his newspaper illustrations. The Matisse-Apollinaire relationship here fluctuates in ways that modify conclusions drawn in Hilary Spurling's biography. The diaspora of the Great War caused an increase in correspondence; some of the wartime letters presented here are very moving and now have extraordinary documentary value (eg. Braque, Derain). The book will therefore sit at the juncture of art history, history and literature.
Each letter will be accompanied by essential notes, particularly on names, events and works, and there will be a final index of names. The letters, particularly those received by Apollinaire, will add much new detail to our knowledge and understanding of the poet and the artists. The book will reconstitute an extensive and fascinating constellation of artists around Apollinaire, including the brightest stars of the century but also many lesser figures. It will provide new, revealing, direct and first-hand access to the jostling cultural life of Paris in the age of heroic modernism.