Jean Cocteau Bastion Museum

In 1957, while working on the decor for Menton's wedding hall, Jean Cocteau spotted an abandoned 15th-century fortress "at the end of the dike between the port and the Promenade du Soleil": the Bastion.

The mayor at the time, Francis Palmero, suggested that he turn it into a museum for his works, and the artist, charmed by the site, accepted, while rejecting the term museum: "I'll change my works as soon as they take on an air of habit". To respect his wishes, the museum, which is now dedicated to him, regularly changes the display of his works.

However, Jean Cocteau was aware that in the autumn of his life, the Bastion would take on a testamentary vocation. So he meticulously oversaw every detail of this creation, from the decoration of the embrasures on the upper floor to that of the frontispiece, not forgetting the ground-floor floor depicting a lizard "symbol of Mediterranean laziness", all three created in pebble mosaics.
He also chose his works from a list drawn up in 1958 and refined until his death in 1963. Unfortunately, Cocteau never saw his final work in Mentonnaise completed: it was his adopted son Edouard Dermit who finished the work according to the guidelines he had left, and the "Musée du Bastion de Jean Cocteau" was inaugurated in 1966, in the presence of his lifelong friend Francine Weisweiller.

The original collection comprises 102 works, supplemented over time by further donations and acquisitions. In 2005, it was merged with the Wunderman donation to form a collection of over 2,000 pieces.

Even today, the Bastion is an essential stop on the discovery circuit of Jean Cocteau's work in Menton.