Jean Cocteau (French, 1892-1963) Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, circa 1917
Jean Cocteau (French, 1889-1963)
Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, circa 1917
signed 'Jean Cocteau' (lower right), pencil
25.5 x 20cm (10 1/16 x 7 7/8in).
Sold for £6,600 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • EXHIBITED:
    Paris, Le Salon des Peintres du Spectacle, 1995

    Of Polish birth, Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) moved to Paris and joined the artistic set of Montparnasse which counted Cocteau, Picasso, Max Jacob, Marc Chagall and Marcel Duchamp amongst its members. Arrested and jailed in 1911 for the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, when he was released a week later he tried to implicate his friend Picasso, but both were exonerated. A poet and writer, it was his 1913 work Alcools that sealed his reputation as one of the early 20th century's most innovative minds. Apollinaire went on to coin the term surrealism, using it in the programme for Cocteau, Diaghilev and Eric Satie's ballet Parade in 1917, and published The Cubist Painters, which explored the theory behind the movement. During the First World War he received a shrapnel wound to his head, and weakened by this, died of Spanish flu in 1918.

Auction Notices

  • The description should read circa 1958 and not circa 1917 as it appears in the catalogue.

Category: Fine Art / Pictures


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