Jean COCTEAU (1889-1963) - Lot 27

Jean COCTEAU (1889-1963) 3 L.A.S., April 26-27 and Monday 1956; 2pages in-4 and 1page oblong in-8, one envelope. April 26. "It's always better to tell the truth (which, incidentally, is not unpleasant). I arrived in the south of France with gloomy weather and had to shuttle back and forth between the dentist in Cannes and the Cape. On top of that, I had to prepare a huge wall and ceiling project for the Menton town hall and the Villefranche fishing court, add to that my pen work and 30 letters a day to answer. I saw Picasso 4 times. I went to Delannoy's film [Marie-Antoinette reine de France] and Youtkevitch's [Othello] without staying a minute longer at the festival, which disgusts me, and I attended the wedding in Monaco [of Rainier II and Grace Kelly] from a window, out of horror of worldly ceremonies. It was in all this that your package arrived. However, out of respect for the work of others and the fear of taking only a cursory glance, I didn't open it and it's quietly waiting for me in our vestibule. The Academy votes forced me to leave Cape Town and miss the Picasso film [Clouzot's Le Mystère Picasso] (which he had shown me on Sunday)"... April 27. "I have the great joy of informing you that I was inspired for my chapel [Saint-Pierre de Villefranche] by some of your photographs, having played the role of intense reality (of truer than true). This seemed impossible to me and remains a rare tour de force that I owe to you. We've just come back from Baalbek, where the Machine infernale was playing out in our dreams in a sort of Palladio theater (the ruins of the Temple of Bacchus). Why weren't you there with our poet - what wonders you would have done. [...] Your Gypsies have become the characters in Saint-Pierre's treason. I'm exhausted with fatigue from the waiting the workmen are forcing me to do"... Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat Monday [May 7?]: "Can you get me urgently (from you or others) some significant documents of big fish in this axis [drawing of two big fish whose tails clash]. You'll be doing me a great favor"... Enclosed is a letter written by Madeleine (Cocteau's maid) on January 22, 1956; and 5 letters from Lucien CLERGUE to Cocteau (4 minutes a.s. and a double carbon), January-April 1956. CCC p. 15-20. Lots 24 to 68 were sold at provisional with possibility of reunion