Max Jacob

Max Jacob

Max Jacob (Quimper, Brittany, July 12, 1876 - Drancy Concentration Camp, March 5, 1944) was a French writer, poet, playwright and painter. A friend of Pablo Picasso, he left his studies to follow the Cubists who settled in Montmartre, Paris, where he met, among others, Apollinaire, Modigliani and Juan Gris. Its initial production was frantic, although many of its first writings are not conserved. His work Saint Matorel, of 1909, constitutes his first great literary creation in the field of the mystical novel. His success was accompanied by various incursions into neoimpresionism in painting, and Surrealism and Dadaism in literature. His most important work Le siège de Jérusalem (The Siege of Jerusalem) was published in 1914, coinciding with his conversion to Catholicism. Other important works were Le cornet à dés (The Dice Beaker, collection of poems in prose), The Defense of Tartufo (1919) and Le nom (1926). Of Jewish origin, World War II took him to Saint-Benoit, where he was captured and directed to the Drancy concentration camp, where he died in 1944. His body was buried in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire in 1949. His tomb was adorned with one of his portraits made in 1935 by his friend René Iché.