Arthur Cravan (born Fabian Avenarius Lloyd; 22 May 1887 – disappeared 1918) was a Swiss writer, poet, artist and boxer. He was the second son of Otho Holland Lloyd and Hélène Clara St. Clair. His brother

Otho Lloyd Otho Lloyd (1885‒1979) was a painter and photographer married to the Russian émigré artist Olga Sacharoff. He was the elder brother of Arthur Cravan and a nephew of Constance Lloyd Wilde, the wife of the Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde. ...

was a painter and photographer married to the Russian émigré artist

Olga Sacharoff Olga Nicolaevna Sacharoff (May 28, 1889, Tbilisi, Georgia ‒ 1967, Barcelona) was a Spanish artist of Russo-Persian origin associated with naive art and the Surrealist movement. Life and work Olga Sacharoff (also spelled Sakhorova, Zakharova ...

. 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 Salina Cruz is a major seaport on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is the state's third-largest city and is the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. It is part of the Tehuantepec District in the west of the ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

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 Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and fac ...

, 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 World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, 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. He staged public spectacles with himself at the centre, once acting on the front of a line of carts where he paraded his skills as a boxer and singer. His proclivity for shock was what endeared him to the New York Dadaist movement, who adopted him as a poster boy after his death despite the fact Cravan never self-identified with the movement. From 1911 to 1915, Cravan published and edited a critical literary magazine, ''Maintenant!'' ("Now!"), which appeared in five issues and which he notoriously distributed around Paris with a wheelbarrow. It was gathered together and reprinted by

Eric Losfeld The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

in 1971 as ''J'étais Cigare'' in the Dadaist collection "Le Désordre".''Dictionnaire des Littératures de langue Francaise'' – Paris, Bordas, 1987, vol. 1, p.603 The magazine was designed to cause sensation; in a piece about the 1914 arts salon, Cravan viciously criticised a self-portrait by

Marie Laurencin Marie Laurencin (31 October 1883 – 8 June 1956) was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde as a member of the Cubists associated with the Section d'Or. Biography Laurencin was born in Paris ...

, stating that it looked like she "needed a good shag". His remarks drove Laurencin's lover and influential modernist critic and poet

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of t ...

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 Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

, André Breton, and other young artists and intellectuals. Carolyn Burke notes that Amelia von Ende, writing in ''

The Dial ''The Dial'' was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. From the 1880s to 1919 it was revived as a political review and ...

'' 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. .. on Endeobserved that Cravan's 'machinisme' had not found favour because it was less euphonious than 'dynamism', the critical term in vogue." Arthur Cravan-Jack Johnson

After the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

began, Cravan left Paris to avoid being drafted into military service. On a stopover in the Canary Islands a boxing match was arranged in Barcelona between Cravan and the former world champion Jack Johnson to raise money for Cravan's passage to the United States. Posters for the match touted Cravan as "European champion". Johnson, who didn't know who the man was, knocked Cravan out cold after six rounds. In his autobiography, ''My Life and Battles'', Johnson noted that Cravan must have been out of training. Cravan's pride in being the nephew of Oscar Wilde produced hoax documents and poems which Cravan wrote and then signed "Oscar Wilde". In 1913 he published an article ("Oscar Wilde is Alive!") in ''Maintenant'' claiming that his uncle was still alive and had visited him in Paris. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' published the rumour, even though Cravan and Wilde never met. In 1915 Cravan held an exhibition of his paintings at the gallery Bernheim Jeune in Paris under the pseudonym Èdouard Archinard.

New York (1916–17)

On 13 January 1916 Cravan arrived in New York on the same ship as

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

, Carolyn Burke notes, "just a few weeks before the Kaiser announced the resumption of attacks on steamships". On the journey Trotsky and Cravan actually became acquainted and, although Cravan reportedly liked Trotsky, he felt that "It was useless telling him the result of his revolution would be the founding of a red army to protect the red liberty". While Cravan's practices may have aligned with certain anarchist and socialist principles, he was staunchly unaffiliated, mocked all notions of progress and subscribed to no single ideology or movement. In 1917, Cravan met the poet

Mina Loy Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; 27 December 1882 – 25 September 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, designer of lamps, and bohemian. She was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to ...

at a war benefit ball where the dress code was modern art movements. That night Cravan had to deliver an address on "The Independent Artists of France and America" but he was pranked by Picabia and Duchamp who got him so drunk that he ended up swaying and slurring his speech on the platform, shouting obscenities and removing his coat, vest, collar and suspenders. This led to his arrest by four private detectives at the event but, after being taken to the local police station, Cravan was soon bailed out by friend Walter Conrad Arensberg who took him back to his home at West Sixty-Seventh Street. Loy was to describe him, for the rest of her life, as the love of her life.

Mexico

Cravan left New York for Mexico on 1 September with a friend called Frost. Around this time in his letters to Loy, who remained in New York, he wrote that "I am only at my best when travelling" and that " en I have to stay too long in the same place, I become almost imbecilic." Together Cravan and Frost hitchhiked north through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine to Canada. After many failed attempts to sail from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland due to the Canadian authorities refusing their lack of papers, Frost became ill and Cravan boarded a schooner bound for Mexico alone. By December, Cravan had reached Mexico City and sent Loy a multitude of letters pleading with her to join him, insisting that his life depended upon it. In one such letter he begged for a lock of her hair and begged, "Better yet, come with all of your hair." He finished this letter with: "La vie est atroce." Soon after this Loy purchased a one-way ticket to Mexico City involving a 5-day train journey. Loy, in one of the extracts from her autobiography ''Colossus'' (the title taking after her name for Cravan), recalls their time in Mexico City:

"Our life together consisted entirely in wandering arm in arm through the streets. It never made any difference what we were doing – making love or respectfully eyeing canned foods in groceries, eating our tamales at street corners or walking among weeds. Somehow we had tapped the source of enchantment."

Not too long after Loy's arrival the pair decided to get married and, as they were unable to afford a luxurious wedding in a Mexican chapel, the pair eventually got married on 25 January 1918 at the mayor's office with two passersby as witnesses. The couple lived on very humble means and Cravan eventually got seriously ill with amoebic dysentery, fever, stomach issues. During this time there was increasing pressure for the couple to leave Mexico city as Cravan, being a draft-dodger, was being pursued by American secret police. After Loy nursed him back to health, the couple decided to leave Mexico City separately – Loy leaving first, in order to research escape routes to Argentina, and Cravan remaining in order to raise some money. In his desperation Cravan took up a fight against Jim Smith in which he was humiliatingly beaten. After reuniting it was clear that Loy was pregnant. With very little money, and Cravan's passport documents still not in order, it was agreed that Loy would travel on a passenger ship to protect her health and Cravan, as well as his friends Winchester, Cattell, and their Swedish friend (none of whom had the necessary papers) would sail to Chile. After purchasing and repairing an old and small craft cheaply in Salina Cruz, Cravan sailed alone to Puerto Angel, a few days up the coast, with the intention of selling or trading it for a larger vessel which he would then return to Salina Cruz in so as to accommodate all his friends in their journey to Chile. Cravan never arrived or returned and it is presumed that he capsized and drowned in a storm raging at sea in the following days. Loy gave birth to Fabienne Cravan Lloyd, named after her father, on 5 April 1919 in London.

Professional boxing record

In popular culture

In the Bob Brown novel ''You Gotta Live'' (1932) the character Rex takes after Cravan and Rita to Loy. "Song Without Any End", a track on

Brian Ritchie Brian Ritchie (born November 21, 1960) is the bass guitarist for the alternative rock band Violent Femmes. Ritchie was born and raised in the United States and is currently a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia, with his full-time residence i ...

's album ''I See a Noise'' (1990), features Arthur Cravan as its subject. ''Shadow-Box'' (1999), a novel by

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

author Antonia Logue, is a fictional version of the interweaving of the lives of Cravan,

and Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world. ''Cravan vs. Cravan'' (2002), a documentary film by

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

director Isaki Lacuesta, traces Cravan's history through re-enactments featuring French boxer and filmmaker Frank Nicotra. ''Cravan'' (2005), a biographical

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

on the life of Arthur Cravan, was written by Mike Richardson and illustrated by Rick Geary. Published by

Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops know ...

, this biography puts forth the idea that Arthur Cravan and novelist

B. Traven B. Traven (; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is ...

might be one and the same. ''Last Stop Salina Cruz'' (2007), a novel by

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

author David Lalé, tells the story of a young man following in the footsteps of Cravan across

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and finally

. ''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.

References

External links

Article from ''Jacket'' Magazine about Mina Loy and Arthur Cravan by Sandeep Parmar

* French Wikipedia article which has fuller list of works and references
''Works of Arthur Cravan'', translated by A.G. O'Meara
* __FORCETOC__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Cravan, Arthur 1887 births 1910s missing person cases 1918 deaths 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English poets 20th-century Swiss poets Dada Draft evaders French male boxers French male poets French poets Missing person cases in Mexico People from Lausanne People lost at sea Swiss male boxers Swiss male poets 20th-century French male writers