Double Visage

Jean Cocteau’s multidisciplinary career spanned poetry, theater, filmmaking, drawing, and printmaking, among other pursuits. The French polymath was a leading figure of the Parisian avant garde in the early 20th century and a fixture among Surrealist and Dada circles. Though he is perhaps best known for his writing and filmmaking, Cocteau maintained a healthy drawing and printmaking practice and developed a signature style of spare, whimsical linework. His visual art belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among other institutions. He was one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art as a whole. The National Observer suggested that, “of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man.”