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Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollonaris de Kostrowicki (pseudonyme: Guillaume Apollinaire), born on August 26, 1880, in Rome, Italy. His Russian-born mother, Angelica Kostrovicka, claimed belonging to Polish Szlachta nobility. His father is unknown. His mother was later gambling and living in Monaco. There young Apollinaire received a French college education and assumed the identity of a Russian Prince.

Apollinaire was fluent in French, Russian, and Italian. He settled in Paris at the age of 20, and worked for a bank. In 1903 he founded his own magazines, 'Le Festin d'Esope', and 'La Revue immoraliste', alluding to the 1902 work of his friend André Gide. He also published semi-pornographic books. His first collection of poetry was 'L'enchanteur pourissant' (1909). With the publication of 'Alcools' (aka.. Alcohols) (1913) Apollinaire established his reputation as a highly original voice in modern poetry. 'Alcools' includes poems written over 15 years, ranging from transcriptions of street conversations to classical verse forms in combination with experimental imagery and absence of punctuation. It's opening poem 'Zone' is a depiction of the tormented poet, who is wandering after the loss of his girlfriend.

In 1909 Apollinaire brought Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque together. In 1911 he helped them organize the Cubist room 41 at the Salon des Independants. Living at 'La Ruche' artists community at Monparnasse, he was arranging art shows and writing reviews about his friends, such as Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Giorgio De Chirico, Andre Derain, Marcel Duchamp, Ossip Zadkine, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and other artists. He collaborated with writers Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Cocteau, Pierre Reverdy, Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was the artistic adviser to Sergei Diaghilev and worked with the "Ballets Russes" in Paris. He write librettos and collaborated with composers Erik Satie and Francis Poulenc among others.

He had a talent of bringing great people together and producing a lasting impact on the world of art. After his successful introduction of Picasso and Braque, which conceived Cubism, he was instrumental in other productive partnerships. Apollinaire's role in art and literature may be paralleled to that of Gertrude Stein. In 1918, Apollinaire organized the first comparative exhibition of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse on Montparnasse. He also published a Matisse-Picasso catalogue, where he wrote an article about the two artists. Apollinaire stimulated the extraordinary artistic dialogue between Matisse and Picasso, which took a form of a "visual conversation" and a continuous exchange of their paintings with mutual respect.

Apollinaire's unusual personality was an example of disobedience being an essential part of his powerful innovative creativity. He forged a reputation of himself as a dangerous foreigner and thief. He was once detained for a week on suspicion of stealing the Leonaro's Mona Lisa from the Louvre, which was soon found to be untrue. He helped define the movement of Cubism, in his writings about Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Apollinaire also coined the term Surrealism in his program note for the ballet 'Parade' by composer Erik Satie and librettist Jean Cocteau. He wrote his own play ''Les Mamelles de Tiresias' in the style described as surrealist. He also coined the term Orphism in definition of such group of artists as Robert Dalauney, Fernand Leger, Francis Picabia, and Frantisek Kupka. Apollinaire applied the term Metaphysical art to his definition of the early works by Giorgio De Chirico.

Though he never publicly admitted his authorship, Apollinaire wrote the well-known erotic novel 'Les Onze Mille Verges' (The Eleven Thousand Rods, 1907). Various underground printings of it circulated widely for many years, while it was officially banned in France until 1970, then it was made into a film titled 'The 11,000 Sexes' (1975). Apollinaire is also credited for another erotic novel 'Les Exploits d'un jeune Don Juan' (The Exploits of Don Juan), which was made into an eponymous movie in 1987.

In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, Apollinaire took the Franch nationality and enlisted in the Army with the goal to liberate Poland from Russia. He fought at the front-line and was seriously wounded in the head. After that he became engaged to a schoolteacher named Madeleine Pages. Then he met Jacqueline Kolb (La Jolie Rousse), whom he married in 1918. She was Apollinaire's last romance and the inspiration behind some of his risqué poems. During the war he wrote experimental 'Calligrammes' (1918), also known as "Word Pictures", a collection of his concrete poetry, in which typography and layout adds to the overall effect of his verses.

Guillaume Apollinaire contracted influenza during the 'Spanish Flu' pandemic of 1918. He died on November 9, 1918, in Paris, France, and was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

Pablo Picasso depicted Apollinaire as 'Pierrot' in several important paintings. Henri Matisse made several portraits of Apollinaire.

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Guillaume Apollinaire

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