Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) French, Original Ceramic Plate from Atelier Madeline-Jolly, Numbered and Dated. The Atelier Madeline-Jolly in Villefranche-sur-Mer produced a series of artworks that captured the friendship between Marie Madeline-Jolly, Philippe Madeline, and the polymath Jean Cocteau that blossomed in 1957. In their studio Cocteau created more than 300 ceramics, and designed “poem-objects” and jewelry as well. Depicts two lovers embracing. Comes with display stand. This piece is signed on the front and dated 1959. Further information and numbered 9/15 on back. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Size Together: 18 1/4 x 9 3/4 x 15 1/2 in. 

Plate Size: 14 x 14 x 2 1/2 in. 

#3622 . 

Jean Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte on July 5th, 1889 into a bourgeoisie family. When he was nine years old his father committed suicide. A child prodigy and polymath, he was sent to study at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris when he was eleven. He began a relationship with his classmate, Pierre Dargelos, and at fifteen ran away from home when the relationship was discovered. He lived among the Bohemians in the Latin Quarter of Paris, and in 1909 published his first volume of poetry, “Aladdin’s Lamp.” He was given the nickname “The Frivolous Prince,” which became the title of his next volume. In his early twenties Cocteau became closely associated with the writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, and Maurice Barrès, and when World War I broke out he served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. During this period he met the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in “Parade” in 1917. An important exponent of avant-garde art, Cocteau had great influence on the work of others, including a group of composers known as Les Six. In 1918 he met the French poet Raymond Radiguet and helped him get an exemption from military service. They collaborated extensively, socialized, and undertook many journeys and vacations together, and when Radiguet died suddenly in 1923 Cocteau fell into depression and became addicted to opium. In 1926 Cocteau’s play “Orphée” was staged in Paris, followed by an exhibition of drawings and sculptures called “Poésie plastique-objets, dessin.” He wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio “Oedipus Rex” in 1927. During a strenuous opium weaning in 1929 he completed his most noted work, “Les Enfants Terribles,” which he wrote in one week. In 1930 Cocteau made his first film, “The Blood of a Poet,” which created division between the Surrealists. A series of popular plays and their translations throughout the 1930s, including “La Voix Humaine,” “Les Parents Terribles,” and his highly lauded “La Machine Infernale” in 1934, made him well known around the world. During this period Cocteau also published two volumes of journalism, and found himself being pulled from his staunch anti-political stance as Europe grew more and more tempestuous. He insisted in an interview in 1938 that his only political convictions were pacifism and antiracism, and praised the French republic for serving as a haven for the persecuted. In 1940 Cocteau signed a petition which protested the rise of antisemitism in France, but during the Nazi occupation he collaborated with German artists, and grew close to Communists after the end of World War II. Cocteau’s later years were mostly spent writing and directing films which introduced the avant-garde into French cinema and influenced the upcoming French New Wave. Frequently his work, either literary, graphic, or cinematographic, is pervaded with bisexual undertones, homoerotic imagery/symbolism, and camp, which he was open about his whole life. Cocteau died of a heart attack in Milly-la-Forêt on October 11th, 1963. During his life he achieved countless honors, including being a member of the Académie Française and The Royal Academy of Belgium as well as a commander of the Legion of Honor and the President of the Cannes Film Festival. His work, in all its various forms, appears in museums, theaters, film archives, and in private collections around the globe.

Commensurate with age.