"Roméo et Juliette, Prétexte a Mise en Scène" 1926 par Jean Cocteau (SOLD)

Par Jean Cocteau, d’après le Drame de William Shakespeare. Décors et Costumes de Jean Hugo

[101] pp.

Paris: Au Sans Pareil

1926

13" x 10 1/2"

20 exemplaires sur velin de cuve des papeteries d'Arches, auxquels ont ete jointes deux suites des gravures, l'une en coleurs sur japon ancien et l'autre en noir sur velin Montgolfier. Reserves aux Amis du Sans Pariel, et imprimes a leur nom, ils sont numerotes de 1 a 20;

20 copies on vat vellum from the Arches paper mills, to which were attached two sets of engravings, one in color on old Japan paper and the other in black on Montgolfier vellum. Reserved for the Friends of Sans Pariel, and printed in their name, they are numbered from 1 to 20;

Exemplaire No 15 of 20 copies

Imprime Pour M. Jean Mayen

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SPLENDID FOLIO VOLUME OF HUGO’S DESIGNS FOR COCTEAU’S ROMÉO ET JULIETTE, WITH 10 WONDERFUL HAND-COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS OF SETS. 

(HUGO, Jean) COCTEAU, Jean. Roméo et Juliette, Prétexte a Mise en Scène par Jean Cocteau, d’après le Drame de William Shakespeare. Décors de Jean Hugo. Paris: Sans Pareil, 1926. Folio, original pale blue-green paper wrappers, uncut, original olive paper chemise, green silk ties. 

Limited first edition, exemplaire No 15 of 20 copies of Cocteau’s surrealistic version of Roméo et Juliette, with seven stage sets as headpieces. A handsome and important contribution to the history of modern art and dance.

Gifted painter and member of the 1920s French Surrealist movement, Jean Hugo is widely recognized for his contributions to graphics and stage design and his unique style of painting. He was the great grandson of Victor Hugo and “like his famous ancestor, he, for his generation, was one of the avant-garde. Jean Hugo was a part of the revolution in theater, poetry, music and dance after World War I” (John Andrew Frey). In 1921 he designed masks and costumes for Rolf de Maré’s Swedish ballet production of Jean Cocteau’s Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel. Cocteau’s artistic influence, together with Diaghilev’s radical and provocative choreography, helped to revitalize ballet in France and laid the framework for modern interpretive dance. Cocteau’s Roméo et Juliette, however, while it depended largely upon the choreographic movement of characters on the stage, is not strictly a ballet, but rather what Cocteau called “an excuse for a stage production.” It was the first of his “textes-prétextes,” a form of play that he hoped would “save the French theater at whatever cost” (Crosland, 79). “Hugo designed a set whose hangings and floor would be of black cloth with colored linear decorations, and for the actors black tights and black velvet dresses, doublets and short hose, painted with ‘embroidery’ that would be picked out by lighting… ‘Red lights framing the stage,’ [Cocteau recalled], ‘kept the audience from seeing anything else” (Steegmuller, 328). Text in French.

Folio beautiful and fine. An exceptional production.