Jean Cocteau

JEAN COCTEAU (France, 1889 - 1963).
"Faun's head", 1930.
Drawing on paper.
Signed and dated in the upper right corner.
Reproduced in the Belgian magazine "Festival" on 06/21/47.
Measurements: 55 x 42 cm; 73 x 60 cm (frame).

Jean Cocteau was a poet, novelist, playwright, painter, designer, critic and filmmaker. Presented by Édouard de Max in 1908 as a young prodigy of poetry at the Femina Theater in Paris, he soon took part in the artistic circles of the French capital, starting in the world of ballet and theater by the hand of Diaghilev in 1909. She frequented the Parisian salons and met Catulle Mendès, Anna de Noailles, Jules Lemaître and Marcel Proust, among others. At the same time he published "The Lamp of Aladdin" (1909), "Frivolous Prince" (1910) and "The Dance of Sophocles" (1912). However, Diaghilev and Stravinski pointed out to him that his path was the wrong one, and he decided to move away from the easy success of Paris by retiring to the countryside, where he composed "Potomak" (1919), an awareness of the deep and secret sources of poetry, expressed through a collection of texts and drawings. In 1916 he met Picasso and frequented avant-garde painters and writers, including Apollinaire, Jacob and Modigliani. The following year, the Russian ballets gave the first performance of "Parade", a ballet performed jointly by Cocteau, Satie and Picasso, which caused a great scandal. In 1919 he met R. Radiguet, an encounter that led him to write "The Professional Secret" (1922), a treatise on poetic art and style of great depth. From 1921, a fruitful period in Cocteau's career began: "The Sweethearts of the Eiffel Tower" (1923), "Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex" (1928) in theater; "Plain-Chant" (1923), "Thomas the Impostor" (1923) and "Le Grand Écart" (1923) in poetry and novels. However, the death of his friend Radiguet plunged him into depression, and led him to take refuge both in opium, which he never abandoned for the rest of his life, and in Catholicism. He continued to write, and in "Opium" (1930) he described his struggle to free himself from the drug. In 1930 he shot his first film, entitled "Blood of a Poet", and gave the Comédie-Française "The Human Voice". However, until 1946 he expressed himself essentially through theater. He would later work on the composition of film scripts such as "The two-headed eagle" (1948) or "Orpheus" (1950), and in parallel composed some of his most beautiful poems: "Léone" (1945), "Le Chiffre sept" (1952), "Cérémonial espagnol du phénix" (1961) and others. Appointed member of the French Academy in 1955, in his last years Cocteau also devoted himself to painting, decorating several churches on the Côte d'Azur (Fréjus, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Menton).