18 November 2011

Guillaume Apollinaire in the 6th arrondissement, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #28

A representation of the church of St-Germain-dès-Près on a coin the church sells for €2 ­— it wasn't easy to take a decent shot of it with all the people milling around, plus the (gloriously relentless and really hot) September sun blanching everything.

For complicated reasons, it took Picasso many years to come up with a monument to his friend Guillaume Apollinaire, and it was not until 1959 that the bust was revealed at the entrance to the tiny Laurent Prache square, immediately next to L'Église St-Germain-des-Prés.

Surprisingly, the bust was not of Apollinaire, but an old one from 1941, of Picasso's mistress Dora Maar.

And at 202 Boulevard Saint-Germain, the building where Apollinaire lived and died:
'DANS CETTE MAISON
VÉCUT ET MOURUT
(JANVIER 1913 — 9 NOVEMBRE 1918)
LE POÈTE
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE'

And this place is now a 'Bistro Resto Café Bar' takeaway pizza place.
 

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