On the Laurent-Prache square, near the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church, there is a monument to Poetry in tribute to the Polish poet Guillaume Apollinaire by Pablo Picasso. At the origin of the monument's inauguration lies the story of one of the greatest failures of the Spaniard, considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

Genesis of the creation. Commissioned to create a monument to Apollinaire in the Père-Lachaise cemetery

Apollinaire died on 9 November 1918. A circle of his friends and admirers celebrated the successive anniversaries of his death by gathering at the poet's grave at around 11:30 a.m. From 1920 onwards, the occasion was accompanied by discussions about erecting a monument to the poet's tombstone in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. A special committee of Apollinaire's friends, made up of 28 members - including Apollinaire's widow, literary men and several Cubist painters - was formed and officially announced the plan to erect a monument to the poet's tombstone in Père-Lachaise cemetery. The undertaking was to be financed by a public fund-raiser and an auction of modern works, conducted thanks to donations from artists associated with Apollinaire, including Polish artists such as Alicja Halicka, Moses Kisling and Louis Marcoussis (Ludwik Markus). Pablo Picasso was chosen as the artist for the monument. As Michael FitzGerald notes, in agreeing to accept the commission, Picasso accepted the condition of creating a design that would express the collective memory of Apollinaire.

Picasso's failure

It soon became apparent that, just a few years after Apollinaire's death, there were already several competing visions of Apollinaire's legacy in the Parisian artistic community. While some emphasised above all Apollinaire's achievements in the field of literature, citing, for example, the poetry volume Alcohols, others stressed his role in the history of art as a promoter of Cubism or creator of the term 'Surrealism'.

As a result of public pressure to obtain funding for the monument, Picasso presented the first avant-garde designs for the monument to the committee in 1927. Maintained in the poetics of Surrealism, the female sketches for 'Metamorphosis' did not, however, meet with the approval of the decision-makers. Even unfavourable comments, such as 'bizarre, monstrous', for example, did not prompt the artist to abandon his choice of surrealist style. Between 1928 and 1932, Picasso developed several designs for abstract compositions made of metal rods (now housed in the Picasso Museum in Paris, among others), alluding to Apollinaire's idea of a 'monument from nothing' from The Poet Murdered, with a view to placing one of them on Apollinaire's tombstone. However, neither project was realised in its intended location due to the failure to meet the expectations of the committee, which sought to create a classicising bust of the poet at the site. Protracted negotiations with Picasso led to other solutions being considered in the 1930s. Eventually, a monument in the form of a menhir by the Russian poet and painter Serge Férat was erected on the tombstone in 1935.

The Poetry Monument in the Laurent Prache square

More than two decades after these events, reflecting on the failed project, in 1959 Picasso donated a bronze bust of a woman to the city of Paris in tribute to Guillaume Apollinaire, entitled Poetry. The sculpture, for which the painter and Picasso's partner at the time, Dora Maar, posed, was placed on a tall stone pedestal with the inscription 'A Guillaume Apollinaire 1880-1918' (To Guillame Apollinaire 1880-1918). The sculpture was one of four bronzes made by the Valsuani foundry in 1950, based on a plaster composition by Picasso from 1941.

Interestingly, the statue was stolen from the square in 1999. Weighing more than 80 kg, the realisation was detached from its base on the night of 29-30 March that year. It was soon found in a forest in Val-d'Oise, from where it was taken to Osny town hall, where, unaware of the sculpture's authorship and history, officials decided to place it inside the municipal building. In 2001, a visitor recognised the lost Picasso sculpture in bronze. After an investigation was launched, the work was quietly repositioned in the square on 18 December 2001.