Jean COCTEAU (1889-1963) Autograph manuscript signed, Les photographies de Clergue, November 1956; 2pages in-4. Beautiful text on Lucien Clergue's photographs. "I have no doubt that Lucien Clergue is a genius in his genre. But for a young photographer from Arles, following in the footsteps of Cartier-Bresson's unusual nobility, to unexpectedly brandish the trumpets of death and blow them with the cheeks and nostrils of El Greco's angels, once again confirms that beauty, which is meant to frighten, has changed its vehicle yet again. A machine, a click, a lens, a darkroom, the eye of a humble Cyclops, and the all-too-familiar pretext of trash cans, corpses, gypsies and flea markets takes on a surprising freshness. Clergue. This Arles-born artist is no aesthete; he only lets go of a still life after having shot it from all sides, administered the coup de grâce and made sure it had spoken, confessed, before dying. Look at our Arles cockerel, setting a trap for fools with a shadowy mouth open in the form of a scream. He adds in a note: "Clergue was undoubtedly the only witness to Aphrodite's birth, let it be known". CCC p. 28-29. Lots 24 to 68 are sold by provisional with possibility of reunion