Spotlighting Jean Cocteau, the Enfant Terrible of the Twentieth-Century French Art Scene

Often described as a true Renaissance man, Jean Cocteau was a prolific poet, novelist, playwright, critic, filmmaker, and artist, embodying the profound spirit of the avant-garde and its efforts to blur the lines between life and art. Whatever the creative genre, medium, technique, or field, Cocteau, who penned the momentous novel Les Enfants Terribles that earned him the nickname, always considered himself a poet, proclaiming once that "poets don't draw, they unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently."

And the French luminary did unravel it with poise on paper, in theatres, and movie screens, leaving behind a lyrical legacy that defied rigid definitions and old traditions. Despite staining his biography with a haunting addiction to opium, Cocteau produced an unparalleled body of work in which the particulars intertwine, correspond, converse, and converge. Throughout his oeuvre, Cocteau illuminated the depths of the human condition, exploring the nuances of emotion and how it governed our existence across a wide range of artistic disciplines that he seamlessly blended. 

Spotlighting the versatility of the enfant terrible of the 20th century, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection explores the myriad of gifts, talents, and skills of Jean Cocteau in the upcoming exhibition Jean Cocteau: The Juggler's Revenge. Curated by a leading Cocteau expert and esteemed New York University art historian, Kenneth E. Silver, the show charts the evolutive journey of the artist's distinctive aesthetics, highlighting the milestones of his turbulent career that often provoked contemporary critics.

The Enfant Terrible

Born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (1889 – 1963) lost his father, George, at the tender age of ten, marking an experience that would sever his childhood and imprint on his life. After his father's suicide, he enrolled at the Lycée Condorcet, a private school he was expelled from due to his recurring absences. Instead, his education was more informal, relying on intriguing experiences and exciting acquaintances. In 1907, Cocteau moved to Paris, ensuring his presence would not go unnoticed. He published two poetry collections very early – Aladdin's Lamp in 1908 and The Frivolous Prince was published two years later – and permeated literary circles, striking friendships with writers Marcel Proust, André Gide, and Maurice Barrès.

However, the French poet took the literary world by storm with the novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929), written in a week during opium withdrawal. Cocteau described the strenuous experience of writing the book in great detail and vivid illustrations in Opium: Journal of drug rehabilitation. Les Enfants Terribles was accompanied by the artist's original drawings, anticipating his versatile spirit and multifaceted career. On the stage, the principle of the "total work of art" and interdisciplinary collaboration was even more evident. In 1917, upon the invitation by art critic and ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, Cocteau wrote the scenario for the ballet Parade composed by Erik Satie. The project comprised momentous collaborations with artists from other fields – the great Cubist painter Pablo Picasso designed the sets and costumes, while Léonide Massine was responsible for choreography.

Between Myth and Reality

Mesmerized by the allure of myths, Jean Cocteau weaved a unifying surreal narrative throughout his oeuvre, including his numerous artworks, namely drawings and sketches of dreamy scenes and eerie figures. Despite sometimes being a part of his preparatory process for plays and films or complementing illustrations for books, these works on paper function as standalone artworks and a testament to the artist's ethos that verged on the threshold between myth and reality.

Drawing inspiration from ancient stories, in 1926, Cocteau wrote and directed his landmark play Orphée, reimagining the Orpheus myth on stage and later on film (1950). An exhibition of drawings and constructive objects for the play titled Poésie plastique–objets, dessins, followed the performance, insinuating in the title his approach to visual arts as three-dimensional, sculptural poetry.

Alongside his iconic works, such as his first film Blood of a Poet (1930) and Beauty and the Beast (1946), Cocteau's filmography aligns with his fascination with the dreamworld, transposed from the author's imagination to the tangibility of human existence through innovative special effects, surreal costumes, and poetic imagery.

Foremostly praised for works in literature, theater, and film, Cocteau also explored the lens's power and potential. For the artist, no medium was unexplored. In photography, he captured the inner fibers of key figures of the art scene and beyond, including Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, Edith Piaf, and Marlene Dietrich, to name a few. He often employed the medium as a documentary tool to record his creative process while also harnessing its expressive potency, leaving behind a body of work that explores double exposure and collage. For Cocteau, photography was an extension of his artistic expression, which was principally governed by continuous exploration and innovation.

Cocteau's paintings are less known in his extraordinary biography and remain to be thoroughly explored, including his most famous frescoes in the Chapelle Saint-Pierre in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, depicting scenes from the life of Saint Peter. Part of the Centre Pompidou's collections, the painting Sommeil hollywoodien (1953) is considered one of his most beautiful works in the medium. 

Despite considering himself a man of letters, Cocteau's personality is inseparable from the visual world. Whether as a book illustration, a preparatory sketch for a play, an outline of a film scene, or a vision for a painting, the drawing has a central place in Jean Cocteau's life, echoing his innermost thoughts and sentiments. After a fatal heart attack, Cocteau passed away at his château in Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne, France, on 11 October 1963 at the age of 74. Several years before, he received ultimate recognition by joining the Académie Française and The Royal Academy of Belgium in 1955.

Jean Cocteau at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Exploring the mystery behind the art world's enfant terrible, the show Jean Cocteau: The Juggler's Revenge features more than 150 works, making it the most extensive presentation devoted to the rebellious artist in Italy. Featuring drawings, graphics, jewelry, textiles, films, documentaries, and archival material, such as documents, books, magazines, and photographs, the show illuminates Cocteau’s eclecticism and his kaleidoscopic approach to art.

Spotlighting recurring themes that preoccupied the illustrious mind of Jean Cocteau, the exhibition sheds new light on his verses, eroticism, Orpheus, Venice, cinema, design, and more. Underlining his fluctuating relationship with Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, one of the display's centerpieces is Cocteau's body of work on paper that reiterates his central role in the avant-garde. Focusing on Cocteau's approach to advertising, film, and popular culture, the exhibition also analyzes the artist's influence on artists across fields and generations, including Andy Warhol, Félix Gonzáles-Torres, and Pedro Almodóvar. Alluding to Jean Cocteau's transtemporal aura, the curator Kenneth E. Silver hinted:

Jean Cocteau: The Juggler's Revenge provides an ideal opportunity to revisit the art of Cocteau, and to see him with a fresh 21st-century point of view. His astonishing artistic range--for which, in his lifetime, he was often criticized for spreading himself too thin—now looks prescient, a model for the kind of wide-ranging cultural fluidity we now expect of contemporary artists.

The exhibition Jean Cocteau: The Juggler's Revenge will be on view at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice from April 13th until September 18th, 2024.

Featured image: Jean Cocteau (1889 – 1963) – Oedipus, or, the Crossing of Three Roads (Œdipe ou le carrefour des trois routes), 1951, Oil on canvas, 97 x 129 cm. Private Collection © Adagp/Comité Cocteau, Paris, by SIAE 2024. All images are courtesy of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.