Jean Cocteau: Interior murals and altar
Title: Interior murals and altar
Artist: Jean Cocteau (1889–1963, French)
Location: Our Lady’s Chapel, Notre Dame de France, Leicester Place, London (RC)
Date: 1959
It was the French cultural advisor in London, Monsieur René Varin who conceived the idea of asking Jean Cocteau to paint murals for Notre Dame de France in London. The French Catholic church had been heavily damaged in the blitz and was being rebuilt and redecorated. Cocteau completed the murals between the 3rd and 11th November 1959, hidden behind a screen to keep journalists at bay. The murals are dedicated to the Virgin Mary and divided into three panels: the Annunciation, the Crucifixion and the Assumption. The murals are simplified drawings, lines with muted colours, with a self-portrait of Cocteau in the Crucifixion scene. It is said that he spoke out loud to the characters as he was drawing them. While painting the virgin he is quoted as saying, ‘O you, most beautiful of women, loveliest of God’s creatures, you were the best loved. So I want you to be my best piece of work too… I am drawing you with light strokes… You are the yet unfinished work of Grace’. (Les murs de Jean Cocteau, written by Carole Weissweiller, photographed by Suzanne Held, Hergé, 1998).
Jean Cocteau was born outside Paris. He left home at fifteen and published his first book of poetry at nineteen; throughout his life, despite success in a number of creative fields, including film-making and ballet, Cocteau thought of himself as first and foremost a poet. In 1957 Cocteau finished his first church murals in the Chapelle Saint-Pierre located in the French Riviera town of Villefranche-Sur-Mer, the first of a small number of commissions for churches in France as well as London. Jean Cocteau was a member of the Académie Française and The Royal Academy of Belgium. He was commander of the Legion of Honour and, among other positions, President of the Jazz Academy.
Further Information
Medium: fresco-secco in industrial wax paint
Permanent display
See Jean Cocteau’s Interior murals and altar on the Ecclesiart map here.
Other artworks in churches by Jean Cocteau: Interior frescos at Chapelle Saint-Blaise des Simples (1960) at Milly-la-Foret, France, motifs on the stained glass windows at the Chapelle des Gournay, (1962) and for the Église Saint-Maximin in Metz, France and frescoes for the Chapelle Notre-Dame de Jérusalem in Frejus, France (unfinished before his death).