Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929) and the films Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949). His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Jean Marais, Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust and Vaslav Nijinsky.
Cocteau can be considered a Surrealist, although he himself tried to avoid this label. His life-long conflict with André Breton is well documented. Cocteau’s work was controversial at the time, and his private life, centred on his openly gay love affairs and his opium addiction considered scandalous. Cocteau is remembered as a free spirit whose groundbreaking work made him a valued representative of the Ecole de Paris.
Awards
Member of the Académie française
Menber of The Royal Academy of Belgium
Legion of Honor
Member of the Mallarmé Academy
Member of the German Academy (Berlin)
Member of the Mark Twain Academy (USA)
Honorary President of the Cannes Film Festival
Honorary President of the France-Hungary Association
President of the Jazz Academy
President of the Academy of the Disc
Public collections include
Jean Cocteau Museum, Menton
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Guggenheim, New York