André Salmon

Writer, poet, and art critic André Salmon was an impassioned supporter of modern art and a central figure in the early historiography of the French avant-garde and Cubism in particular.

Son of an engraver and sculptor, Salmon was raised in a left-leaning family with little means and did not receive a formal education. In 1897 Salmon’s family moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where André worked as auxiliary attaché for the French embassy and absorbed pre-revolutionary Russian culture. When the family returned to Paris in 1902, Salmon found employment in a bank. A year later, after meeting the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, Salmon gave up his post and embraced the bohemian lifestyle of Montmartre and Montparnasse, frequenting the café La Closerie des Lilasand contributing to the newly founded journal Le Festin d’Esope. Salmon, Apollinaire, and the poet Max Jacob were also part of the so-called bande à Picasso (Picasso’s gang), that included artists, writers, and critics who gravitated around Picasso’s studio at the Bateau Lavoir. In 1907 Salmon himself moved into the Bateau Lavoir, where he was one of the few to witness the production of Picasso’s 1907 Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Between 1909 and 1910, he worked as an art critic for the newspaper L’Intransigéant; initiated a new column, “Le Courier des ateliers,” in the newspaper Paris-Journal; and wrote for the periodical Gil Blas. Around 1910 Salmon moved to Montparnasse, where he frequented Moise Kisling’s atelier, which had become a gathering place for the artists in the neighborhood.

Salmon played a key role in the early reception and historiography of Cubism, writing in his first book on art, La Jeune peinture française (1912), that Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon had triggered an artistic revolution. The chapter entitled “Histoire anecdotique du Cubisme” reflects the centrality of Picasso to Salmon’s view of the development of Cubism. Salmon helped to solidify Picasso’s reputation, fostering a personal mythology around the artist. His work as an art critic paused during his service in the First World War but, by 1916, he was involved once again in Parisian cultural activities, organizing, for example, the Salon d’Antin that July. Held at the haute-couture house of fashion designer Paul Poiret, the Salon marked the first public exhibition of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Salmon’s activity as a writer found expression in a number of genres, including the novels La Négresse du Sacré-Coeur (1920) and L’Entrepreneur d’illuminations (1921); and the poetry collections Peindre (1919), Le Livre et la bouteille (1920), and L’Age de l’humanité (1921). He also published books of art criticism such as La Jeune sculpture française (1919) and L’Art vivant (1920). Throughout the 1920s, Salmon authored numerous introductions to exhibition catalogues and monographs on artists including André Derain, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri Rousseau.

During the 1930s, Salmon focused less on art criticism and worked instead for Paris-Journal. In 1938, Le Petit Parisien assigned him the controversial task of reporting on the Francoist side of the Spanish Civil War, which led to a momentary break with Picasso. His personal political views were, however, still leftist.

Between 1955 and 1961 Salmon published a three-volume memoir titled Souvenirs sans fin. In November 1961 Salmon permanently relocated from Paris to Sanary, in the south of France, where he remained until his death.