MutualArt.com: Jean Cocteau
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Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th century and highly influential on the Surrealist and Dadaist movements, among others. The National Observer suggested that "of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came…
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culture · French writer and film director (1889–1963) · painter · playwright · film director · poet · actor · illustrator · novelist · screenwriter · librettist · voice actor · also Jean Cocteau, Clément Eugène Jean Pierre Cocteau, Zhan Kokto, Eugène Jean Maurice Cocteau, Eugene Jean Maurice Cocteau, Cocteau
Born 5 July 1889 · Died 11 October 1963 · Q83158
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2026· 1 entry
2023· 1 entry
Forbes: Discover A Secret Jean Cocteau Artwork On The Côte D’Azur in France
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2022· 1 entry
Yahoo: A spruced-up Jean Cocteau Cinema evolves after the pandemic
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2016· 1 entry
Wall Street Journal: Décor Inspiration from Surrealist Jean Cocteau
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2013· 1 entry
Hyperallergic: Jean Cocteau: The Man in the Mirror
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2012· 1 entry
Hyperallergic: Watch Jean Cocteau's Nightmarish First Feature Film
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1977· 1 entry
And My Blue Notebooks in English in 1979, describe Cocteau
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1963· 13 entries
Died 1963-10-11.
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“Variant: The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.”
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“La source désapprouve presque toujours l'itinéraire du fleuve.”
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“En fin de compte, tout s’arrange, sauf la difficulté d’être, qui ne s’arrange pas.”
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“Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.”
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“An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.”
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“What is history after all? History is facts which become lies in the end; legends are lies which become history in the end.”
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“Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.”
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“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”
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“The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.”
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“You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.”
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“The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.”
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“The skin of all of us is responsive to gypsy songs and military marches.”
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1956· 1 entry
Cocteau decorated the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer with mural paintings
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1955· 2 entries
Career landmark: seat 31 of the Académie française (1955–1963).
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Cocteau was made a member of the Académie Française and The Royal Academy of Belgium
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1947· 1 entry
Paul Morihien published a clandestine edition of Querelle de Brest by Jean Genet, featuring 29 very explicit erotic drawings by Cocteau
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1946· 1 entry
Awarded Louis Delluc Prize for Beauty and the Beast (1946).
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1945· 1 entry
Cocteau was one of several designers who created sets for the Théâtre de la Mode
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1940· 2 entries
Le Bel Indifférent, Cocteau's play written for and starring Édith Piaf (who died the day before Cocteau), was enormously successful
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Cocteau signed a petition circulated by the Ligue internationale contre l'antisémitisme (International League Against Antisemitism) which protested the rise of racism and antisemitism in France, and declared himself "ash
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1938· 1 entry
Cocteau had compared Adolf Hitler to an evil demiurge who wished to perpetrate a Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre against Jews, his friend Arno Breker convinced him that Hitler was a pacifist and patron of the arts with
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1930· 1 entry
Cocteau made his first film The Blood of a Poet, publicly shown in 1932
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1929· 1 entry
One of his most celebrated and well-known works, the novel Les Enfants terribles was published
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1927· 1 entry
“s opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, which had its original performance in the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927. In 1929 one of his most celebrated and well-known works, the novel Les Enfants terribles was published. In 1930 Cocteau made his first film The Blood of a Poet, publicly shown in 1932. Though now generally accepted as a surrealist film, the surrealists themselves did not accept it as a truly surrealist work. Although this is one of Cocteau”
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1923· 1 entry
With some claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey to opium addiction
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1912· 1 entry
Collaborated with Léon Bakst on Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes; the principal dancers being Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky
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1889· 1 entry
Born 1889-07-05.
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