PORTFOLIO Although Guillaume was the editor of this work, Apollinaire’s collaboration was vital to the project. He closely followed the production of the work and offered precise practical and even strategic advice. In a letter to Guillaume, Apollinaire wrote, “As I am the author of the preface, it would be better if my name were not among those of the collectors.”14 The preface he signed summarizes his engagement in the promulgation of tribal art and takes on the same themes he had developed in his articles, particularly those expressed in “Mélanophilie et Mélanomanie,” which appeared in April 1917 in 156 poorly understood arts. Throughout their entire lives, both men, jointly and individually,16 championed an informed, coherent, and intelligent approach through their articles, their exhibitions, and the events they produced. NOTES 1. Published in Alcools, Paris, Mercure de France, 1913. 2. Les Arts à Paris, no. 3, December 1918, pp. 2–4. 3. Guillaume Apollinaire, Chroniques d’art 1902–1918. Paris, Gallimard, 1960, p. 82. 4. Journal du Soir, October 3, 1909. 5. Art News, October 27, 1934. 6. This was also how he met Picabia, Picasso, de Chirico, and others. He knew how to benefi t from his situation. For example, “Mr. Apollinaire has informed me that you have an interest in my art nègre statues. I have six at the moment,” he wrote to Picasso (Picasso Museum archives). 7. Paris-Journal, September 12, 1912, Paul Guillaume archives, Alain Bouret Collection, Musée de l’Orangerie DOCOR 2011.0.63 (B0 006 Pr). 8. Les Mémoires du Baron Mollet, Paris, Gallimard, 1963, p. 94. 9. Marius de Zayas, How, When, and Why Modern Art Came to New York, edited by Francis M. Naumann. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1996, p. 55: “Through Picabia, I met Apollinaire and Max Jacob, and through Apollinaire I met Paul Guillaume.” 10. Marius de Zayas, op. cit., p. 164, “I remarked more than ever the infl uence of African negro art among these revolutionists. I am convinced once more of the necessity to have a show in the S. of the negro art.” Naumann adds that the “S” stands for Photo-Secession, the name of Stieglitz’s gallery. 11. This subject was explored in Tribal Art magazine’s special issue #3, devoted to the African Art, New York and the Avant-Garde exhibition (Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 27, 2012–April 14, 2013). This event, curated by Yaëlle Biro, developed from her doctoral thesis, submitted in Paris in 2010 under the title “The Transformation of the African Ethnographic Object into a Work of Art: The Circulation and Dissemination of African Artworks in Western Europe and the United States from the 1900s through the 1920s.” 12. Two letters, one dated September 15, 1915, and the other October 8, 1916, are particularly revealing in connection with this. These documents are at the Musée de l’Orangerie, and their inventory numbers are D.0.050.Ms and D.0.072.Ms. 13. SIC, issue 14, February 1917. SIC was a literary magazine Mercure de France. He insisted on the necessity of moving forward toward a better understanding of these arts and of promoting further research. He also wrote, In recent years, some artists, art lovers, and museums have believed they could be interested in idols of African and Oceanic art from a purely artistic point of view. But no critical apparatus is in place for evaluating this curiosity …. For a long time to come, we will have to be content with having only aesthetic and poetic reactions to tribal art idols. … European critics may one day be able to contribute a methodical analysis of styles. In response to Apollinaire’s demands for research, in this book Guillaume presented proposals for defi nitions and classifi cations. Information relating to the provenance of the illustrated works also appears in captions, distinguishing this publication from another that had appeared barely two years earlier, Carl Einstein’s famous Negerplastik, in which pieces were presented with no descriptions.15 Because of Apollinaire’s death in November of 1918, Sculptures Nègres was the fi nal fruit borne of the collaboration and relationship between the “two Guillaumes,” a legacy that demonstrated the depth of their commitment to understanding and promoting these newly discovered but Plate XIV. (See fi g. 6.) Plate XV. Paul Guillaume Collection. “DZEMBÉ” GOD DETAIL. Plate XVI. BAMBARA MASK (Côte d’Ivoire). Plate XVII. Paul Guillaume Collection. DOG-HEADED STATUE (Gabon). The great tutelary spirit of the Pahouins. Its contemplation by women is rarely allowed. Plate XVIII. (see fi g. 7).
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