Edited by Alston Purvis, Peter Rand and Anna Winestein.
The Ballets Russes was a phenomenon of the early twentieth century, permeating daily life wherever the company traveled and leaving a lasting impact on dance, theater, and the visual arts.
Fashion and decor designers and visual artists in particular—including Coco Chanel, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Léon Bakst, and Pablo Picasso—found inspiration in the Ballets Russes. Designers and artists moved past old boundaries and created costumes and set designs for these extravagant productions, bridging the gaps between tangible and abstract artistic genres.
The Ballets Russes and the Art of Design explores these revolutionary icons and ideas, illuminating Sergei Diaghilev's profound revitalization of the arts, which continues to influence us today. Ten essays by internationally recognized experts and 200 color and black-and-white illustrations—many from private collections and never-before-published—discuss a broad range of topics, including set and costume designs, graphic design and poster art, photographs and postcards, Diaghilev's presence in the media, and private and museum collections of Ballets Russes treasures.
The Ballets Russes and the Art of Design
- Edited by Alston Purvis, Peter Rand and Anna Winestein.
- Category: Art – Design – Textile & Costume.
- Format: Hardcover, 208 pages
- Publisher: The Monacelli Press
- ISBN: 978-1-58093-254-7 (1-58093-254-1)
- Pub Date: December 1, 2009
About the Author
Alston Purvis, chair of the department of graphic design, College of Fine Arts, Boston University, has written numerous books, including Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, Vol. 1, Dutch Graphic Design: A Century of Innovation, and Meggs' History of Graphic Design.
Peter Rand teaches writing at the College of Communication, Boston University, and is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Firestorm and China Hands.
Anna Winestein is a historian and scholar of Russian culture working on her doctoral dissertation at Oxford University.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Peter Rand
Chapter One
Designing Dance
John E. Bowlt
Chapter Two
Ballets Russes Costumes and the Art of Design
Sarah Woodcock
Chapter Three
The Evidence of the Backcloth
Sarah Woodcock
Chapter Four
Hartford's Historic Evening
Eric Zafran
Chapter Five
Posters of the Ballets Russes
Alston Purvis
Chapter Six
Still Dancing: Photographs and Postcards of the Ballets Russes
Anna Winestein
Chapter Seven
In His Own Voice: Diaghilev in the British Press
Lynn Garafola
Chapter Eight
The Dancing Museum
Eric Zafran
Chapter Nine
Collecting Designs for the Ballets Russes: A Conversation
Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky and Nikita D. Lobanov-Rostovsky
Chapter Ten
The Ballets Russes on the Auction Block
Anna Winestein
Contributors
Donors
Index
Acknowlegments
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