H. AMORO (20th century) - Lot 87

H. AMORO (20th century) The Ox on the Roof Gouache - Original model. Signed lower right. Legended in the composition. 45x33.5cm A postcard of this work, published by the center on this occasion, is included. Exhibition : Cocteau - Centre Pompidou, Paris, September 2003-January 2004. Our work reproduced in the catalog, page 245. On February 24, 1920, Le Bœuf sur le Toit premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, signed by Milhaud, Massine and Cocteau for the argument: "This is the sign for the bar where our scene is set. Don't look for any more meaning in it than in the signs for the smoking dog or the one-eyed horse; it was the title of a very popular maxim in Brazil". On December 15, 1921, the enterprising Louis Moysés and the excellent pianist Jean Wiener opened the Bœuf sur le Toit with Jean Cocteau as godfather. He was "the great impresario of the time, the commentator and popularizer of all the novelties". (Maurice Sachs - Au temps du bœuf sur le toit - Grasset, Les Cahiers rouges, 1987, page 137). The whole of Paris, and soon the whole world, gathered there, drinking in as much glory as alcohol. There's no need to advertise this place, which turns away anyone who isn't part of the cosmopolitan Tout-Paris, hence the extreme rarity of this poster signed by an unknown artist. Against a background of blue night, above the black, twisted Parisian chimneys, appears the head of the ox, all white, and in its eye (an ox eye, of course!) Cocteau's face. This lot was described by expert Alain Weill.