Paul Bilhaud
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Paul Bilhaud (Allichamps, December 31, 1854 - Avon, 1933) was a French poet and dramatist who belonged to the French avant-garde group the Incoherents. He is the author of an all-black painting called Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night.
On October 1 1882 the "Exposition des Arts Incohérents" in Paris featured a black painting by the poet Paul Bilhaud titled Combat de nègres dans une cave pendant la nuit, which was appropriated in 1887 by the French humorist Alphonse Allais, in Album primo-avrilesque (April fool-ish Album) of monochrome pictures of various colors, with uniformly ornamental frames, each bearing a comical title. Allais called his all-red painting Tomato Harvest by Apoplectic Cardinals on the Shore of the Red Sea.
Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night predates Malevich's, Black Square on a White Field by 31 years.
Literary career
Author of famous monologues such as Le Hanneton (1879). He writes for Braré, then for Alfred Hennequin (1842-1887) numerous vaudevilles. Some librettos for the composers Lecocq and Serpette, children books illustrated by Job, and poetry.