A major new exhibition, Jean Cocteau and His Friends: Portraits and Self-Portraits, is open at the Musée Jean Cocteau Le Bastion in Menton until 8th June 2026. Presented by the city’s mayor and curated from the Séverin Wunderman collection, the exhibition celebrates the life and work of the iconic French artist through over 150 works — including drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs.
At its heart, the exhibition explores the duality of the self and the influence of friendship, offering a deeply personal look at Jean Cocteau’s emotional world. Alongside his own self-portraits — some created during periods of grief and introspection — are portraits of his closest friends, among them Raymond Radiguet, Jean Marais, Jean Desbordes and Édouard Dermit. These individuals not only shaped his creative journey but were themselves immortalised in intimate and expressive works.
The exhibition is presented in four thematic sequences: Self-portraits, Monstres sacrés, Musicians, and Dancers and Writers. Cocteau’s depiction of his friends as mythic and sacred figures is especially poignant in the Monstres sacréssection, where larger-than-life personalities like Sarah Bernhardt, Lucien Daudet and Pablo Picasso are cast as muses.
Meanwhile, his lifelong collaboration with musicians such as Erik Satie and Francis Poulenc is explored in the Musicians sequence, while his connections with dancers and literary figures — from Serge de Diaghilev to Raymond Radiguet — are highlighted in the final section.
A particular focus is placed on self-portraiture as a spiritual exercise. Cocteau used his art to process grief, identity and time, especially following the deaths of loved ones. His introspective series Jean l’Oiseleur is a striking example, created during a period of mourning and seclusion at the Welcome Hotel in Villefranche-sur-Mer.
The show also features rare international loans and collaborations, including pieces by the Spanish sculptor Apelles Fenosa and artists Yvonne Billis Régnier and Zhang Hua, whose works reflect Cocteau’s ongoing influence across continents and disciplines.
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