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Lot 52
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JEAN COCTEAU (1889-1963) SIGNED LIMITED EDITION LITHOGRAPH TITLED WE BELIEVE IN EUROPE WITH COA – 17IN x 23IN
JEAN COCTEAU (1889-1963) SIGNED LIMITED EDITION LITHOGRAPH TITLED WE BELIEVE IN EUROPE WITH COA – 17IN x 23IN
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Description:

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) limited edition lithograph titled “We Believe in Europe”. It is signed by the artist in plate, matted and framed under glass in a beautiful frame. It is printed on Vellum Rives paper. It is a limited edition of 200 copies, but it is not numbered. It measures 17 inches x 23 inches and it comes with a COA. This piece was acquired from a French art dealer.

    Provenance:
  • This piece was acquired from a French art dealer.
    • Dimensions:
  • 17 inches x 23 inches
    • Artist Name:
  • Jean Cocteau
    • Medium:
  • Lithograph
    • Circa:
  • 1961
    • Notes:
  • About the Artist: Born to a wealthy family in a small village, Maisons-Lafitte, near Paris, France, Jean Cocteau had a multi-faceted career as a stage designer, graphic artist, ceramist, sculptor, poet and film maker. He also had numerous love affairs with both males and females including Romanov princess, Nathalie Paley who became pregnant with his child and who, much to his dismay, terminated the pregnancy. Actors Jean Marais and Edouard Dermit were long-lasting relationships, and Cocteau adopted Dermit and cast Marais in one of his plays, Beauty and the Beast. He was open about his homosexuality and did much writing to counter homophobia. His writing and art expression was surreal, and he became an ongoing influential exponent of this style. However, he was proudest of his poetry and ever insisted that he was primarily a poet. "Edith Wharton described him as a man 'to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City...' (Wikipedia). His father, a lawyer and amateur painter, committed suicide when Jean was ten years old. The young man entered a private school for four years but was expelled in 1904. He ran away to Marseilles and using a false name, lived among prostitutes until the police found him and returned him to his family. In 1908, he wrote poetry for a Paris stage production by Edouard de Max, prominent tragedy writer, and the next year, he began a libretto-writing association with Sergey Daighilev, Director of the Ballet Russes. His first published poetry was Aladdin's Lamp, which he completed at age 19. During World War I, Cocteau drove an ambulance but was arrested and his war service was terminated. He became associated with artists and writers well known to the Parisian scene including Marcel Proust, André Gide and Pablo Picasso whom he met in 1917. The two of them joined Diaghilev in Rome where Picasso did the set designs and Cocteau writing for the ballet, Parade. Cocteau also founded a publishing company, which published his writings as well as musical scores of Stravinsky. In 1918, he formed an intense friendship with Raymond Radiguet, then age 15, and a talented writer whose work Cocteau promoted. Reportedly his death from typhoid fever five years later was so disturbing that Cocteau turned to opium, but counter to this theory is the fact that Cocteau did not attend the funeral and that he left town with Diaghilev for a ballet production. During a recovery time from opium, he did much of the writing for which he is admired including Orphee, a stage play, and a novel, Les Enfants Terribles. Several years later, his first film, Blood of a Poet, was released, and he finished a play, La Machine Infernal, which some regard as his greatest play. A period of about fifteen years followed when his opium addiction interfered with his productivity, but a triumphant 'return' for him was his film adaptation of Beauty and the Beast titlted La Belle et la Bete. He also adapted several plays to films. In 1954, Jean Cocteau was elected to the Royal Academy of Belgium and the next year to the Académie Français. Other recognition included memberships in the German Academy of Berlin, the American Academy, Mark Twain Academy, and Honorary Chairmanship of the Cannes Film Festival. In 1959, he directed his last film, The Testament of Orpheus, which had cameo appearances of well-known people in the artist such as Picasso. Cocteau died in 1963 of a heart attack at his home, a chateau at Milly-la-Foret, France, several hours after hearing of the death of his close friend, Edith Piaf. In 1940, Cocteau had written a play for starring Piaf. Titled Le Bel Indifférent, it was very successful.
    • Condition:
  • Excellent

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