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Lot 218:
Description
Signed Leon Nikolaievitch Bakst, ‘Costume Design’. Watercolor & Pencil on Paper, circa 1921
Signed, Leon Nikolaievitch Bakst (Russian, 1879 – 1956). Rare costume design in watercolor painting & pencil, possibly for the russian ballet. Signed ‘Bakst’ and dated 1921 in pencil lower left.
Leon Bakst was a russian painter whose many-sided talent showed itself in various areas – he worked as a designer of clothes, set decorations, interiors, textiles, etc. Apart from a series of interior designs for the Rothschilds, he also designed exhibitions for the mir iskusstva society and occupied a post of a furniture and interior designer at ‘Sovremennoe Iskusstvo’ (russian: ‘Modern Art’). In 1922, he broke off his relationship with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. During this year, he visited Baltimore and, specifically the evergreen house, the residence of his friend Alice Garrett. Garrett became his representative in the united states in 1920, organizing two exhibitions of the artist’s work at new york’s Knoedler Gallery, as well as subsequent traveling shows. While in baltimore, Bakst re-designed the dining room of evergreen into a shocking acidic yellow and chinese red confection. The artist also transformed the house’s small circa 1885 gymnasium into a colorfully modernist private theatre. This is believed to be the only extant private theatre designed by Bakst.
8 1/2" high x 6" wide. Frame – 12" high x 9 1/2" wide.
Condition: Not examined out of frame, though minor toning as well as one tear is present just above the signature.
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