[1][3] Born as an illegitimate child in Châtillon-sur-Seine, Côte d'Or, Alice Prin had "a wretched childhood that could only lead to laughter or despair".

[4] She "would crumble a petal from her mother's fake geraniums to give color to her cheeks and was fired from a nasty job at a bakery because she darkened her eyebrows with burnt matchsticks".

[4] By the age of fourteen, Prin's "large and splendid body" had garnered the artistic and sexual attention of various Parisian denizens,[4] and she began surreptitiously posing nude for sculptors.

[5] One day, her mother unexpectedly intruded into an artist's studio in a rage, denounced Prin as a shameless prostitute, and disowned her forever.

[5] As her fame grew, she became a local celebrity who symbolized the Montparnasse quarter's nonconformity and its rejection of the social norms of the petite bourgeoisie.

Adopting a single name, "Kiki", Prin became a fixture of the Montparnasse social scene and a popular model, posing for dozens of artists, including Sanyu, Chaïm Soutine, Julien Mandel, Tsuguharu Foujita, Constant Detré, Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau, Arno Breker, Alexander Calder, Per Krohg, Hermine David, Pablo Gargallo and Tono Salazar.

In his 1976 book Memoirs of Montparnasse, Canadian poet John Glassco recalled that: Her maquillage was a work of art in itself ...her mouth painted a deep scarlet that emphasized the sly erotic humor of its contours.

"[9] Every night before going out together, he "meticulously applied her cosmetics and assisted in the choice of her clothes, creating a visual style that is as much a part of his oeuvre as any of his signed paintings".

[2] A symbol of bohemian and creative Paris and of the possibility of being a woman and finding an artistic place, she was elected the Queen of Montparnasse at age 28.

[1] 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.

[1][11] 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.

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).