JEAN COCTEAU — Poésie graphique. Galerie Arcade Colette, Paris, 1996

Galerie Arcade Colette, Jardin du Palais-Royal, 155 galerie de Valois et 17 rue de Valois, 75001 Paris, 17 September–21 October 1996. Vernissage mardi 17 septembre 1996, 18 à 21 h. Original exhibition invitation. Monochrome offset printing on card stock, 10.5 × 15 cm. Photographic portrait of Cocteau to recto; exhibition information to verso. The exhibition is recorded in the specialist Cocteau archive of the Centre international de documentation et de recherche.

Condition: Very good. Light age toning, faint surface marks and minor edge wear.

Writer, filmmaker, draftsman and designer, Cocteau moved continuously between literature and visual culture. His graphic work formed part of a much wider practice that also extended through murals, jewellery, textiles and film.

The invitation makes that movement explicit. Drawings, photographs, tapestry and jewellery are gathered under the single term poésie graphique. On one side, Cocteau stands beside a blackboard, cigarette in hand; on the other, the image is converted into title, dates, address and opening hours.

A posthumous exhibition distributed through the format it describes: image and language held on opposite sides of a card.

Ships flat, securely backed and tracked from the UK.