c. 1920

Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire

French (born Poland), 1878 - 1941

The Polish-born artist Louis Marcoussis was born Louis Casimir Ladislas Markus, but changed his surname at the suggestion of his friend, the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, whom he met in the French village of Marcoussis. Both Apollinaire and Marcoussis served in World War I, and the poet is shown wearing a bandage to cover a serious head wound, which he suffered after shrapnel from an exploding shell pierced his helmet. This bandage adds a disquieting note to an otherwise jubilant image of the half-Polish poet (whose real surname, Kostrowicki, is shown in this print), who is presented against a backdrop of overlapping planes, redolent of the spines of books and bearing the titles of his poetry.