Jean Cocteau

Born. 05.07.1889 in Maisons-Laffitte
Died. 11.10.1963 in Milly-la-Foret

French writer, director and painter

About the artist

Cocteau was born on 5 July 1889 in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, on the outskirts of Paris. When he was nine years old his father committed suicide. From 1900 to 1904, He attended the Lycée Condorcet school (1900-1904).  His first volume of poems (Aladdin’s Lamp) was published when he was 19. Cocteau later became known as ‚The Frivolous Prince‘ in Bohemian artistic circles, named after a book he published at twenty-two.

In his early twenties, Cocteau was in several writers’ circles. One of whom was Léon Bakst, who he worked with in 1912 on the Le Dieu bleu for the Ballets Russes; with Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky as principal dancers.

Cocteau served in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver during the First World War. It was during this time that he would meet and socialize with Guillaume Apollinaire (poet), artists Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani, and numerous other writers and artists. Sergei Diaghilev persuaded him to write a scenario for a ballet impresario resulting in the ballet, ‘Parade’ in 1917. The ballet was produced by Diaghilev, with sets painted by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire, and the music by Erik Satie.

Cocteau’s play Orphée was performed in Paris on 15 June 1926,  followed quickly by an exhibition of drawings and “constructions” called Poésie plastique–objets, dessins. Cocteau wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus rex. Les Enfants terribles, one of his most famous works, was published in 1929.

His first film The Blood of a Poet was released in 1932. Generally accepted as a surrealist film, even though it was not accepted as a truly surrealist work.

Cocteau was extremely popular for his plays during the 1930s, His best theatre production La Machine infernale was an adaptation of the legend of Oedipus.

At the age of 74, Cocteau died of a heart attack on 11 October 1963 at his château in Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne. His health had been in decline for several months following a previous heart attack.