Les chefs-d’œuvre du Musée Jean Cocteau 

Collection Séverin Wunderman, 2025

Galerie des Musées, Palais de l’Europe — 12 April 2025 – ongoing

"Guided tour with Guillaume Theulière, Director of Menton Museums and co-curator of the exhibition

What is the purpose of this exhibition?

We are presenting the collection bequeathed by Séverin Wunderman to the city of Menton in 2005. He was one of the greatest collectors of Cocteau’s work, having assembled almost 2,000 works based on the “prince of poets” and his friendships with Sarah Bernhardt and other artists such as De Chirico and Modigliani. It was this exceptional collection that led to the construction of the museum. Following Storm Adrian in 2018, we needed a place to present this multidisciplinary collection, which includes some large-format works. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the donation, we wanted to use the space in the Galerie des Musées to showcase the collection before the Musée Cocteau reopens. With Sandrine Faraut Ruelle, head of the Musée Jean Cocteau – Séverin Wunderman collection and co-curator of the exhibition, we have selected one hundred works to show all aspects of Cocteau. It is a chronological and thematic tour, from his beginnings as an illustrator in the magazine Le Mot, to the Mediterranean years, while also showing works by other artists in the collection.

What about the set design?

To do this, we once again worked with Ahmad Reshad, who came up with a very elegant, sober, transparent set, inspired by the Ange Heurtebise, played by Cocteau in his play Orphée, recreating a kind of mirror crossing with plays of light and colour – extremely light, self-supporting picture rails that can also be reused, as Ahmad is always keen to be eco-responsible."

— d'art et de culture - Le magazine culturel de Monaco

scenography, graphics and signage

Production: SARL 2REL - Julien Borrel

Exhibition view. Photo: © Ahmad Reshad,