Jean Cocteau was born just outside Paris, into a comfortable French family. After his father died when he was nine, he was raised by his mother and grandmother. It was the life between the suburbs and the city that formed him: from an early age, he was immersed in Parisian salons, theatres and artistic life, absorbing literature, music and visual art long before he chose his own creative path.

Cocteau was one of the great creative spirits of the early 20th century; a true polymath who moved effortlessly between poetry, drawing, theatre, film and design. He sat at the heart of the Surrealist and avant-garde worlds while never quite belonging to any single movement, preferring to follow instinct over theory. Cocteau had a rare ability to absorb modern ideas and translate them into something lyrical, direct and emotionally accessible.

His visual work is instantly recognisable: spare, elegant line drawings animated by myth, fantasy and wit. They feel playful but never slight, often appearing as if drawn in a single breath – timeless, intimate and quietly confident. A defining presence in his life and work was the actor Jean Marais Cocteau’s great love and most important muse. He wrote roles specifically for Marais and cast him repeatedly, including as Eupheus in La Machine infernale, and later in films such as Orphée and La Belle et la Bête. Through Marais, Cocteau gave human form to many of the myths, dreams and obsessions that run through his work.