Guglielmo Alberto Wladimiro Apollinare de Kostrowitsky – i.e. Guillaume Apollinaire – was one of the most charismatic, multi-faceted and influential figures in the artistic life of Europe during the early twentieth century. Though his reputation is most firmly founded on his poetry, he was a writer of stories, of several stage plays, of art criticism, and of pornographic novels. A gregarious man, he knew the artists who mattered in the Paris of the Belle Epoque, a period when that city’s status as world cultural capital was taken seriously. One critic (Roger Shattuck) labelled Apollinaire the impresario of the avant-garde. This article will give an account of his colourful life, closely bound up with his artistic …
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