Laughing Torso: Reminiscences Of Nina Hamnett

by Nina Hamnett

Memoirs and reminiscences of British artist Nina Hamnett.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

322 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1984

About the author

Nina Hamnett (14 February 1890 – 16 December 1956) was a Welsh artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' chanteys, who became known as the Queen of Bohemia.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nina Hamnett wrote these memoirs in 1932 when she was 42. She was primarily a painter and a painter’s model and was part of the modernist movement; moving between Paris and London from about 1910 to 1925 (with several forays to the south of France and Brittany). She has also been described as avant-garde and bohemian. The memoirs are engaging, rather self-deprecating and frank. Hamnett also manages to be discreet at the same time, not naming some of those closest to her, or just using initials or nationalities.
When published the memoirs received a great deal of publicity and caused some scandal. She (and her publishers) were sued by Aleister Crowley for some factual statements about his activities in Sicily. Crowley lost and then tried to bribe the publishers not to reprint the book.
Hamnett lived life to the full during these years and shares some of the flavour of her life. She doesn’t focus a great deal on her private life; affairs with men and women and mixing with artists, musicians and writers on both sides of the channel. She focuses on her grown up life and sketches over her abusive father.
This was written at about the same time as Gertrude Stein’s memoirs of the same period, The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. Although both have a huge cast of characters, they are very different in that Hamnett is at the fringes of her own story whereas Stein is at the centre. The cast of characters are as you would expect and include Modigliani, Cocteau, Radiguet, Sickert, Nancy Cunard, various Sitwells, Roger Fry, Carrington, most of the Bloomsbury group and many more who were better known then than now.
Nina Hamnett is an engaging narrator who has a great generosity of spirit and the circles she moves in are varied and interesting. She is often short of resources (that’s why she wrote the memoirs), but is resourceful. The sadness of her later life is foreshadowed a little, but her follow up memoirs are more difficult to find. If you are interested in London and Paris bohemian circles in this period this is a must read.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story, mainly of bohemian life in 1910-1930 Paris.

The chapter about her birth and childhood starts as follows:

On February the fourteenth, 1890, I was born.

Everybody was furious, especially my Father, who still is. As soon as I became conscious of anything I was furious too, at having been born a girl; I have since discovered that it has certain advantages.

More information, including on the real name of the accidental husband can be found e.g. here or here. This and this article contain pictures of some of her work .

See this review for more information.

[Bettie]

Anecdotes on Evan Morgan by his contemporaries..

“Laughing Torso”: Reminiscences of Nina Hamnett.
Ray Long & R.R. Smith
US Publication Date: 1932

UK Constable and Company Ltd., London, 1932.

.....or find them in the books on Evan @WilliamPCross

[Rljulie · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have so many fanciful recreations of what bohemian life in the artists' quarters of Paris in the 1920's was like, but Nina Hamnett's memoir (first published 1932) tells us directly, from a first-hand account. And it's delightful. Granted, she is writing after-the-fact, and her memoir has the smokey flavor of all the romanticism and embellishment that oft-repeated stories generally take on. I can just hear, between the lines, all the people who must have urged her, "Nina, you've got to write these stories down!" Nevertheless, I'm glad she did. She recounts gossipy tales of Modigliani, Brancusi, Valentino, Cocteau, Roger Fry, their parties, their travels, their witticisms, running around Paris in checkered stockings, sleeping with poets and sculptors and modeling and painting...in the dry, candid manner that leaves me feeling I'm sitting right by her side, sharing cigarettes in long holders, and perhaps an aperitif or three.

[KL Baudelaire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bless her, Nina Hamnett had a lot of memories, but most of them were of drinking and bumping into celebrities. Entertaining enough if you've heard of her famous friends, but not much in the book worth recounting.

[Emmeline]

"On February the fourteenth, 1890, I was born. Everybody was furious, especially my Father, who still is. As soon as I became conscious of anything I was furious too..." http://archive.org/stream/laughingtor...

[Robert Pereno due · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always been fascinated by Nina. Great artist. Great writer.

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This could have been written yesterday. In fact Nina Hamnett wrote this memoir in 1932 at the age of 42. It is a wonderfully spirited account of her childhood and years scraping a living as an artist in London and Paris during the 1910s and 1920s. She met almost everyone culturally important at this time from Jean Cocteau to Eric Satie, James Joyce to George Moore, and brings these characters alive through a sequence of anecdotes that rattle along as if you are listening in on a fascinating conversation over a vermouth cassis in a Montparnasse cafe. Her energy and charisma come through in her writing and it is no surprise that alongside the artists, writers and composers of all nationalities she also befriended bohemian countesses who gave her their cast-off evening dresses. I had to keep reminding myself that she was writing of time when Queen Victoria had only just died as her outlook is so modern; and of how radical it was to reject corsets, cut one's hair - and indeed earn an independent living from art as a young woman. My only bugbear was that many people are referred to by initials only, probably because they were still alive when this was published; I will have to find a biography of Nina and hope that some of these mysterious figures are revealed. Overall a really fun read.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The memoirs of Nita Hamnett, Lost Generation artist and aggressively zany artworld socialite, who writes with wonderful, understated amusement about the world before and after the Great War. Like seemingly everyone in her time, she can't go to a soiree without running into notoriety and genius. She introduces Rudy Valentino to James Joyce, hangs out with Merian Cooper and Ernie Schoedsack, and faces the lawsuit of the Great Beast himself for the things she writes about him in this book. A fine companion piece to the accounts of the Crosbys and other wits and victims of the age.

[Dennis Dingus · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tiring read

This memoir is a long and tedious read. The author amazingly is able to live a life where she looks down on everyone else as full and boring, while existing off the generosity of others. Amusing anecdotes are few and far between.

[Shona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book and available on Google books for free.

[Carly Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read, but the first time I tried to read it I couldn't get into it....a few weeks later I tried again and it clicked. It's a bit like the rambling inner dialogue of a woman in the Paris/London art scene of the early 20th century. Very interesting descriptions that include lots of famous artists and musicians of the time.

[Arica · Rating 4 out of 5]

She's hilarious.

[Veldi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know much about the "Queen of Bohemia", but she does remind me of Forrest Gump.