The historic Jean Cocteau collection

History of the collection

It was in 1957 that the project for a museum dedicated to Jean Cocteau’s art was born, in the disused fort which guards the entrance to the port of Menton. This was Mayor Francis Palmero’s way of thanking the artist for his work in the wedding hall of the town hall and renewing his patronage. The idea appealed to Cocteau, who saw it as a solution to the problem of the conservation and visibility of his works: “When I look for any written sheet in the studio I come across packages of forgotten drawings and I wonder how to organise all this mess [...] The Citadel of Menton will do me the immense service of allowing me to exhibit everything that is piled up left and right in the attics and cellars.”

The following year, even before work began, Cocteau submitted to the mayor a first selection of 56 works intended to constitute the basis of the Bastion’s collection. On October 10, 1963, as the interior layout of the future museum had already taken shape, he communicated to Palmero a second, more extensive list; but his death the next day brought the project to a halt.

His legatee, Édouard Dermit, took over to carry out the work and formalise the donation to the city of Menton of the collection of 106 works, comprising 70 drawings, two paintings, three lithographs, two tapestries and eleven ceramics.

The museum was inaugurated on April 30, 1966.

A living collection

Since then, the Bastion collection has continued to grow:

• In 1972, the Society of Friends of the Museums gifted seventeen silkscreen prints from the Age of Aquarius series, drawn in collaboration by Jean Cocteau and Raymond Moretti.

  

• In 1983, Irène Lagut, an artist friend of Cocteau and resident of Menton, donated to the museum her correspondence with the poet, 56 handwritten letters decorated with drawings.
• In 1987, following the death of photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue, his heirs bequeathed to the museum three of his portraits of Cocteau, presented here.
• In 1989, Irène Lagut gifted the museum her collection of books autographed by Cocteau. The museum also received a photographic collection of 136 pieces.
• In 1991, the Bastion’s collection was expanded with two ceramics and two original drawings by Jean Cocteau.
• In 1996, following the death of Irène Lagut , the Bastion museum received a bequest of one of her paintings illustrating a ballet by Jean Cocteau, Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel. Two sculptures and a drawing were also added to the collection.
• In 2003, after visiting the Bastion, Severin Wunderman, an American collector fascinated with Cocteau’s art, planned to deposit his collection in Menton for a period of twelve years. He finally decided to donate it to the town, an exceptional donation which was formalised in 2005. Among the 1809 works donated, 990 were by Cocteau and 270 by his artist friends. The Wunderman collection was merged with the original Bastion collection, making it possible to add to and complete certain series of works.