Cocteau Goes Lovecraftian

Got a kick out of this bit from S.T. Joshi's 4/7/22 blog entry:

"Speaking of France, my colleague Gregory Franklin informs me not only that Jean Cocteau’s brief mention of Lovecraft in the London Observer of 1954 is now available digitally (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/100296818/books-of-1954-a-symposium/), but that Cocteau also fashioned a pencil drawing, Hommage à Lovecraft, in 1951, which can be seen here: (https://denisbloch.com/artworks/artists/jean-cocteau/hommage-a-lovecraft/). Note that this drawing preceded the first book of Lovecraft’s stories in French La Couleur tombée du ciel Denoël, 1954 by several years."



http://stjoshi.org/news2022.html

Lovecraft au pompadour!

John Coulthart has noted and commented on this story on his blog
http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2022/05/04/cocteau-and-lovecraft/
and also reproduced the image that Cocteau evidently drew on, a "sea bishop" from Conrad Gessner’s Historia Animalium (1551–1558).

I recognised Gessner's engravings from a filler article in a book I used to own...The Man from Atlantis Annual 1979!

Incidentally, I reckon the sea bishop was also the inspiration for the Terileptils from Doctor Who story The Visitation - forty years old this year.

>3 housefulofpaper:

Thanks for that link!