Editing Alice Prin (section)

== Artwork and autobiography ==
[[File:Constant Detré (Szilárd Eduard Diettmann), Portrait of Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin).jpg|thumb|[[Constant Detré]], ''Portrait of Kiki de Montparnasse'', c. 1920–1925]]
A painter in her own right, Prin had a sold-out exhibition of her paintings in 1927 at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in Paris.{{sfn|Braude|2022}} Signing her work with her chosen single name, ''Kiki'', her drawings and paintings comprise portraits, self-portraits, social activities, fanciful animals and dreamy landscapes composed in a light, slightly uneven, [[expressionist]] style that is a reflection of her carefree manner and boundless optimism.{{sfn|Anon.|2009}}

In 1929, she published an autobiography titled ''[[Kiki's Memoirs]]'', with [[Ernest Hemingway]] and [[Tsuguharu Foujita]] providing introductions.{{sfn|Braude|2022}}{{sfn|Gaipa|Scholes|1999}} In 1930, the book was translated by [[Samuel Putnam]] and published in Manhattan by Black Manikin Press, but it was immediately banned by the United States government. A copy of the first US edition was held in the section for banned books in the New York Public Library through the 1970s. However, the book had been reprinted under the title ''The Education of a Young Model'' throughout the 1950s and 1960s (e.g., a 1954 edition by Bridgehead has the Hemingway Introduction and photos and illustrations by Mahlon Blaine).

These editions were mainly put out by unscrupulous publisher [[Samuel Roth]]. Taking advantage that banned books did not receive copyright protection in the U.S., Roth put out a series of supposedly copyrighted editions (which never was registered with the Library of Congress) which altered the text and added illustrations—line drawings and photographs—which were not by Prin. After 1955, Roth appended an extra ten chapters falsely credited to Prin 23 years after the original book, including an invented visit to New York where she met with Roth himself.{{sfn|Franke|2016|p=22}} None of this was true.{{sfn|Franke|2016|p=22}} The original autobiography finally saw a new translation and publication in 1996.{{sfn|Franke|2016|p=22}}

For a few years during the 1930s, Prin owned the Montparnasse cabaret L'Oasis, which was later renamed Chez Kiki.{{sfn|Jiminez|2013|pp=438–439}} Her [[music hall]] performances in black hose and garters included crowd-pleasing risqué songs, which were uninhibited, yet inoffensive. She later departed Paris to avoid the occupying German army during World War II, which entered the city in June 1940. She did not return to live in the city immediately after the war.