Jean Cocteau
France (1889—1963)After his father’s death, Cocteau moved to Paris, where he became involved in literary circles. He soon became well known, publishing two collections of poetry and founding the journal Schehezerade. During the war, he returned to drawing and discovered Cubism, while Picasso and Satie collaborated with him on Parade. A friend of Apollinaire, he was nevertheless fiercely criticised by the Surrealist group and Breton. He wrote Les enfants terrible and Opium: The Diary of an Addict. Often isolated by his contemporaries, he turned to theatre and wrote several plays. After the Second World War, he returned to film, directing The Beauty and the Beast and completing his Orphic Trilogy.
