Label Type
Mystery MondayLabel
Happy Pride Month everyone!
This 20th century French artist, novelist, filmmaker, playwright, poet, and critic was instrumental in the founding of several avant-garde art movements including Surrealism and Dadism leading him to be called a “Renaissance man,” the “Prince of Poets,” and “the Frivolous Prince” by contemporaries. Can anyone guess this polymath’s name? We will be back later this afternoon with the answer.
If anyone guessed Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (1889-1963) – or more simply Jean Cocteau – you would be correct. It is hard to overstate the influence Cocteau had on 20th century European art movements. His circle included Jean-Paul Satre, Henri Matisse, Coco Chanel, Diego Rivera, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso, and Amedeo Modigliani. He also lived openly and unapologetically as a gay man at a time when that could have led to steep social and legal peril. In 1928 he wrote an explicitly homoerotic, semi-autobiographical novel La livre blanc (The White Paper) and produced movies, several of which were banned for being considered “indecent” and labeled as pornography.
Cocteau moved from Paris to the French Rivera following World War II. There in 1956 he began an ambitious, multi-year project redecorating the 14th century Chapelle Saint-Pierre at Villefranche-sur-Mer, covering the interior and exterior with intricate murals. At the same time, he began to collaborate with local ceramicists Marie Madeleine Jolly and Philippe Madeleine, eventually producing over 300 designs in six years. These works highlight Coteau’s mature aesthetic with themes pulled from Classical mythology. Note the spare elegance of his work with its focus on symmetry using simple lines and touches of color.
Purdue University Galleries was given two of these beautiful plates in 2000 by alumni Edmund Natke and his wife Ermanna. The majority of the almost 7,000 works in Purdue University Galleries’ collection were generously donated by alumni, facility, and staff.
Title: L'epirit du Jardin (The Spirit of the Garden)
Artist: Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French
Date: 1958
Medium: Ceramic, pigment
Technique: modeling
Accession number: 2000.23.03