Blaise Cendrars, born Frédéric Louis Sauser, was a catalyst in some of the explosive artistic innovations of the early twentieth century. An intrepid spirit, he left his Swiss homeland at age seventeen. In Saint Petersburg and New York, he wrote his first poems and transformed into Blaise Cendrars—a name symbolizing his aesthetic goals: to burn and to create poetry from the ashes of his life.
Photograph: August Monbaron, Portrait of Blaise Cendrars, 1907. Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images. With detail of Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961), La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France. Illustrations by Sonia Delaunay-Terk (Paris: Éditions des hommes nouveaux, 1913). Gift of Dr. Gail Levin, 2021; PML 198726 © Blaise Cendrars/Succession Cendrars. © Pracusa 20230412