Jean COCTEAU (1889-1963) - Lot 43

Jean COCTEAU (1889-1963) 3 L.A.S., March-May 1958; 1page in-8 and 2pages in-4. March 6. "I am momentarily carrying a very heavy cross and am keeping silent so as not to weigh down the crosses of others. Denise Tual must have written to you about the Gypsies, I'm not unaware of the difficulties this represents, but it is, alas, indispensable to the progress of my film. I need 2 young people, a boy and a girl, and a mother breast-feeding a child, the rest ad libitum and a trailer. They'll be paid like artists"... May 14. "If you knew half, what am I saying? a quarter of my obstacles and why I had to (or could) postpone the film until September, you'd say that age and fame make no difference". He finds Eluard's book [Corps mémorable, illustrated with photos by Clergue] "magnificent". Gérard Worms, of Editions du Rocher, "is struggling with extreme difficulties. With Orengo's debts, it was impossible for him to advance millions for a book which, like mine, is a 'surprise' sale"... [At the end of May], the letter is written around a photograph of Luis-Miguel Dominguin, a page torn from the program for the Feria de Nîmes. "As I learn that some poor journalistic types imagine that I have stolen images from you, perhaps it is necessary to inform them that you have been extremely kind in providing me with a few models. I apologize, except for the fairly accurate guitarist and little girl I placed next to Mlle Carole Weisweiller, for having metamorphosed a group of gypsies into Roman soldiers. Degas painted directly on photographic enlargements and Utrillo copied postcards of Montmartre. I've simply transvestited types from the Saintes-Maries, just as I owe the attitudes of my angels to marvellous sports photographs. Nothing is new in the marvellous mutual aid of artists, and nothing is new either, alas, in the mediocre's hope of taking away a few centimetres of glory"... 5 letters from Lucien CLERGUE to Cocteau (double carbon), March-May 1958. CCC p. 50-53 Lots 24 to 68 are sold by provisional auction with the option of reunion.