Arthur Cravan (born Fabian Avenarius Lloyd; 22 May 1887 – disappeared 1918) was an English writer, poet, artist and boxer. He was the second son of Otho Holland Lloyd and Hélène Clara St. Clair. His brother Otho Lloyd was a painter and photographer married to the Russian émigré artist Olga Sacharoff. His father's sister, Constance Mary Lloyd, was married to Irish poet Oscar Wilde. He changed his name to Cravan in 1912 in honour of his fiancée Renée Bouchet, who was born in the small village of Cravans in the department of Charente-Maritime in western France.

Cravan was last seen at Salina Cruz, Mexico in 1918 and most likely drowned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico in November 1918.

Early life

Cravan was born and educated in Lausanne, Switzerland, then at an English military academy; he was expelled under mysterious circumstances, but some sources suggest that it was for spanking a teacher. After his schooling, during World War I, he travelled throughout Europe and America using a variety of passports and documents, most of them forged. He declared no single nationality and claimed instead to be "a citizen of 20 countries".

Career

Cravan set out to promote himself as an eccentric poet and art critic, but his interest in art and literature was that of the provocateur which is typified by his claim in Maintenant (March – April 1914) that art is "situated more in the guts than in the brain" and that he wanted to "break the face" of the modern art movement. The magazine was designed to cause sensation; in a piece about the 1914 arts salon, Cravan viciously criticised a self-portrait by Marie Laurencin, stating that it looked like she "needed a good shag". His remarks drove Laurencin's lover and influential modernist critic and poet Guillaume Apollinaire into a fury that resulted in a bid for a duel. It is not known whether the duel ever happened, though Apollinaire was depicted more than once with a sling on his arm around that time. Cravan's rough vibrant poetry and provocative, anarchistic lectures and public appearances (often degenerating into drunken brawls) earned him the admiration of Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, André Breton, and other young artists and intellectuals.

Carolyn Burke notes that Amelia von Ende, writing in The Dial in 1914, argued that Cravan "had not only put the idea of pluralisme into poetic form but also invented the term 'machinisme', which very appropriately characterises the mechanical and industrial side of our life. [...] [von Ende] observed that Cravan's 'machinisme' had not found favour because it was less euphonious than 'dynamism', the critical term in vogue."

thumb|Arthur Cravan and Jack Johnson poster, 1916

After the First World War began, Cravan left Paris to avoid being drafted into military service.

Cravan never arrived or returned and it is presumed that he capsized and drowned in a storm raging at sea in the following days.

Cravan vs. Cravan (2002), a documentary film by Catalan Spanish director Isaki Lacuesta, traces Cravan's history through re-enactments featuring French boxer and filmmaker Frank Nicotra.

Cravan (2005), a biographical graphic novel on the life of Arthur Cravan, was written by Mike Richardson and illustrated by Rick Geary. Published by Dark Horse Comics, this biography puts forth the idea that Arthur Cravan and novelist B. Traven might be one and the same.

Last Stop Salina Cruz (2007), a novel by British author David Lalé, tells the story of a young man following in the footsteps of Cravan across France, Spain, USA, Mexico and finally Salina Cruz.

Tonight Sandy Grierson Will Lecture Dance and Box was a 2011 theatre show at the Edinburgh Fringe, co-created by the actor Sandy Grierson, who played Cravan, and the director Lorne Campbell.

The Arthur Cravan Memorial Society was a 2013 BBC Radio 4 portrait of Cravan by the comedian Arthur Smith.

The Escape Artist, a 10-part documentary on the poet-boxer Arthur Cravan by Ross Sutherland, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in January 2020.

See also

  • List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea

References

Further reading

  • Arthur Cravan, Œuvres, Éditions Ivrea, Paris, 1992.
  • André Breton, Anthology of Black Humor, 1940.
  • Man Ray, Self-Portrait, 1963.
  • Hans Richter, Dada: Kunst und Antikunst, Köln, 1964.
  • Julien Levy, Memoir of an art Gallery, New York, 1977.
  • Robert Motherwell, The Dada Painters and Poets, éd. Motherwell, New York, 1951.
  • 4 Dada Suicides: Selected Texts of Arthur Cravan, Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma & Jacques Vache (Anti-Classics of Dada) by Jacques Rigaut, Julien Torma, Jacques Vache, and Arthur Cravan. Roger Conover (Editor), Terry J. Hale (Editor), Paul Lenti (Editor), Iain White (Editor). (1995) Atlas Press
  • 'Nonbattles and Counterthoughts: Arthur Cravan takes Manhattan' by Dafydd Jones in Dada New York: New World for Old, Martin I. Gaughan (editor), volume 8 (2003) in Crisis and the Arts: The History of Dada series. .
  • 'To Be or Not To Be ... Arthur Cravan' in Dada Culture: Critical Texts on the Avant-Garde, Dafydd Jones (editor), volume 18 (2006) in Avant-Garde Critical Studies series. .
  • Carolyn Burke, Becoming Modern, The Life of Mina Loy, New York, 1996.
  • Arthur Cravan, Maintenant: Pt. 1 (English translation), Dedecus Press, London, 2008. Stephen McNeilly (Editor), Tomasz Stephenson (Translator), James Wilson (Translator).
  • Arthur Cravan, Maintenant, No. 3 (English translation), 2013. Anna O'Meara (Translator) http://operationist.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/maintenant-a-translation/
  • Article from Jacket Magazine about Mina Loy and Arthur Cravan by Sandeep Parmar
  • Scans of Cravan's Maintenant, numbers 3 and 4.
  • "Living Poetry" by Andrew Gallix
  • French Wikipedia article which has fuller list of works and references
  • Works of Arthur Cravan, translated by A.G. O'Meara

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