Max with Pablo Picasso (right) and friends.The following notes on Max Jacob's life are taken from Dan Franck's "Bohemian Paris" which is a must read for serious scholars of Bohemia's history. The book, from which we have reprinted a few small excerpts here with permission from King Ubu Roi, can be purchased here:
To anyone who asked about his childhood, he would say that a band of gypsies had kidnapped him when he was three years old; that his bones were removed and he was cut up into pieces before being discovered several years later in the courtyard of Ecole Normale Superiure, one of France's finest schools.
There was no need to believe a word he said; the man was a poet. Max was also a painter, and always had been.
One fine day, with no luggage, no coat, just a few francs pinched from his mother's wallet, he came to Paris, where he quickly discovered that a paintbrush didn't bring much more in the way of revenue than a pen. He became in turn piano teacher, tutor, office employee, art critic, street sweeper, apprentice carpenter. lawyer's clerk, seretary, sales representative and childminder.
After viewing some sixty-four paintings of his dear friend Picasso at Vollard's gallery, Max said: "He did imitate the older artists (like Renoir, Degas, Delacroix, and Rubens), but his imitations were caught up in such a whirlwind of genius that one felt only, in this exhibition of a great number of canvases, the explosive force of an entirely new and original personality."
Max met Pablo in the apartment he shared with Manyac on Boulevard de Clichy. A dozen Spanish friends cooked beans as Picasso showed Max canvas after canvas. They ate, drank, and sang songsuntil late into the night, the guitars played melodies from Beethoven's symphonies.
After hearing Max recite his poems, Picasso cried with emotion and declared that Max was the only true French poet of his time. In return for the compliment, Max gave him some of his most precious possessions: a Durer wood engraving, authentic images of Epinal, and all his daumier lithographs.
Picasso drew him into his band of Spaniards. They would laugh, sing, and dance far into the night.
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