Lodging · 1902–1903
Rue Campagne-Première
Address · 8 bis, rue Campagne-Première, 75014 Paris
Metro · Raspail (4, 6)
Today · Private, seen from the street
The story
South of boulevard du Montparnasse, rue Campagne-Première became at the turn of the 20th century one of the densest artists' streets in Paris, just as painters and writers were leaving Montmartre for Montparnasse. Eugène Atget had his studio at No. 17 from 1898 to 1927; the cité at No. 9 was built with materials salvaged from the 1889 Exposition Universelle; the Hôtel Istria, at No. 29, would later host Satie, Duchamp, Picabia, Tzara and Kiki. Modigliani, Foujita, Kandinsky, Rilke and many others passed through.
Crowley arrived in Paris via Marseille in the autumn of 1902, returning from the K2 expedition and a stay in Egypt. As early as October he told Gerald Kelly, his Cambridge friend who had become a painter in Paris, that he would lodge in Montparnasse rather than in Kelly's street, and that he wished to keep a low profile. A letter to Kelly bears the address 8 bis rue Campagne-Première and the date, in square brackets, Wednesday 14 January 1903: in it Crowley offers his condolences to his friend, struck by bad family news. Kelly then had a studio in Montparnasse, but the sources do not specify that it was in this street.
These months of 1902-1903 were when Crowley moved in Rodin's circle, to whom he devoted the poems “Rodin” and “Balzac”, translated into French by Marcel Schwob; Rodin wrote to him on 25 February and 14 March 1903. It was also through Kelly that he met Stephen Haweis, and Kelly who introduced him to his sister Rose, who had joined him in Paris in 1902 and whom Crowley would marry on 12 August 1903. In February he left Paris for the Côte d'Azur.
The street has kept many of its studios, now rare in Paris, as well as several remarkable façades, including the ceramic-clad building at No. 31. The sources say nothing about the building at No. 8 bis itself.