This is not
the first time I talk about Lapin Agile (see previous post), but as I recently
had the privilege to listen to the present owner, the now 80-some-years old
Yves Mathieu, during some two or three hours tell us the story about the place,
I thought I must make another post. I was invited together with other members
of “Le Vieux Montmartre”.
This famous
Montmartre cabaret was in the mid of the 19th century referred to as
the “Cabaret des Assasins”, later “Ma Campagne”. In 1875, the artist André Gill
painted a rabbit which jumped out of its saucepan, which later gave the place
its new name; playing with words - “le Lapin à Gill” became “Lapin Agile”, the
Nimble Rabbit. The painting on the façade is a copy, the original can be found
in the Montmartre Museum (see previous posts, e.g. here and here).
So we were
sitting in the old little cabaret, which is still open every night (except
Mondays) from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. (see their site), listening the a number of fascinating stories,
sitting on wooden benches, surrounded by tens of paintings and drawings (and a
Christ) made by different artists who have been more or less regular visitors
over the years.
One of the
paintings on the wall is a copy of Picasso’s “At the Lapin Agile”. The original
was hanging here between 1905 and 1912, when it was sold for 20 $. The original
is today at the MMA in New York. It represents Picasso himself, a model
(Germaine Pichot) and in the background the cabaret “manager”, Frederic Gerard, “Frédé”, playing
the guitar. Already in 1904, Picasso had made the portrait of Frédé’s stepdaughter
Margot, today known as “Woman with a Crow” (Toledo Museum of Art).
During
Frédé’s time, the place was owned by Aristide Bruant, famous then and still
today, especially thanks to different posters made by Toulouse-Lautrec. Bruant
sold it to the son of Frédé, Paulo, of which the present owner, Yves Mathieu, our host, is the
stepson.
Lapin Agile was (and still is) a meeting place for a number of artists. The bearded Frédé
played the cello or the guitar and everybody – Picasso, Modigliani, Utrillo,
Braque, Apolinaire, Max Jacob… participated by singing, reading poems…
Frédé, Père
Frédé, had a donkey, known as Lolo, which also became famous in 1910 when its
tail was used as a brush for a painting presented at the Salon des Independants
under the name “Et le soleil se coucha sur l’Adriatique”, where it got very good reviews.
I will not make
a list of all later famous artists who have performed, even started their
careers, here - a lot of French ones (Nougaro,
Brassens…), but also some classical music ones like Sviatoslav Richter, who later returned regularly ….
… like the couple Alexandre Lagoya / Ida Presti who, young, even lived here .
The guestbook is impressive. Here are just some
examples: Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, Leontyne Price, Foujita, Fernand Léger,
Vlaminck, Eleanor Roosevelt, Edward G. Robinson...