COCTEAU Jean (1889-1963)

Lot 39
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Estimation :
200 - 250 EUR
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Result : 263EUR
COCTEAU Jean (1889-1963)
Signed autograph letter addressed to Henry BARBUSSE. S. d., [1927], 1 page in-4 in ink on blue paper. "My dear Barbusse, I love you, respect you and admire you very much, you know that. You also know how my heart revolts with yours. I embrace you. Jean Cocteau. P.S. Never doubt my deep gratitude for your clear-sightedness and don't confuse me with the aesthetes of scandal and the conservatives of old anarchies. J. C.". Jean Cocteau's declaration of admiration for Henri Barbusse is surprising at first, as the author of Thomas the Impostor and that of Fire (two radically different novels about the First World War) seem so far apart. Yet the militant communist Henri Barbusse had praised Jean Cocteau's literary work, and the latter had written about the Russian Revolution: "I absolutely refuse to criticize a people that is changing its skin". The postscript directly targets the surrealists, "aesthetes of scandal", with whom Cocteau was then in violent conflict, and whom the Communists looked upon with a suspicious eye.
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