COCTEAU, Jean (1889-1963)
Autograph letter signed “Jean Cocteau” to Louis Bonalumi
St Jean Cap-Ferrat, 29th May 1954, 1 p. in-4, autograph envelope attached
“One of my beautiful illustrated books that we always forget in the bibliography“
Fact sheet
COCTEAU, Jean (1889-1963)
Autograph letter signed “Jean Cocteau” to Louis Bonalumi
St Jean Cap-Ferrat, 29th May 1954, 1 p. in-4, autograph envelope attached
Usual fold marks
Nice letter by Jean Cocteau about his collaboration with Louis Aragon for the Dresden Museum
“Mon cher Louis,
J’aimerais des nouvelles de nos “Discours” et je te signale pour la liste des livres illustrés par moi “La Course des Rois” de Thierry Maulnier un de mes très beaux livres illustrés qu’on oublie toujours dans la bibliographie.
Penser aussi dans la liste des œuvres du musée de Dresde Dialogues avec Aragon.
Je serai à Paris le 1er juin ou le 2.
Mais j’aimerais avoir les épreuves ici.
A toi
Jean Cocteau *”
La Course des Rois is a 1947 book by Thierry Valmont. It was illustrated by 8 drawings by Jean Cocteau
In the spring of 1955, the U.S.S.R. decided to return to the R.D.A. paintings belonging to the Dresden Museum, taken away by the Soviet army at the time of the bombing of the city in February 1945 by the American army. The event motivated the organization of an exhibition of the paintings, first in Moscow and then in Berlin. Aragon, asked to write the catalogue of the exhibition in the spirit of socialist realism as he redefined it at the 13th Congress of P.C.F. in June 1954, proposes to Cocteau to do interviews on the paintings on display, from photographs taken in Berlin by Roger Pic and plates seen with a magic lantern.
Cocteau is probably anticipating here an Italian translation of the aforementioned works