The Ballets Russes and the Art of Design commemorates the one hundred year anniversary of the Ballets Russes, and the extraordinary influence of its imagery on design of all kinds in the twentieth century. This book is also a lasting companion to a week-long festival held in Boston,Massachusetts, in May 2009, to honor the centenary. Ballets Russes 2009 harnessed the energies of Boston cultural institutions to celebrate the creative aspects that made the Ballets Russes such a potent cultural force as theatrical art. For although we cannot experience the Ballets Russes itself, we can listen to the music of Stravinsky, attend performances of ballets commissioned by the Ballets Russes, and we can gaze at images created for the Ballets Russes, many of them in these pages, that now grace the walls of museums throughout the world. Thus, we can warm ourselves in the glow left by the passage of a show business comet that continues to affect our vision of the world in various ways.

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. Sergei Diaghilev, impresario from 1909 until his death in 1929, fused the most avant-garde,groundbreaking movements in dance, choreography, art, design, and costume into unique and stunning productions. The work was exciting,and always new, and it stretched the limits of the possible in art. The color, form, and material in costume and set design astonished audiences,transforming every corner of Western culture in the twentieth century.

Fashion and decor designers and visual artists in particular--including Coco Chanel, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Leon 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.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE Designing Dance

CHAPTER TWO Ballets Russes Costumes and the Art of Design

CHAPTER THREE The Evidence of the Backcloth

CHAPTER FOUR Hartford's Historic Evening

CHAPTER FIVE Posters of the Ballets Russes

CHAPTER SIX Still Dancing: Photographs and Postcards of the Ballets Russes

CHAPTER SEVEN In His Own Voice: Diaghilev in the British Press

CHAPTER EIGHT The Dancing Museum

CHAPTER NINE Collecting Designs for the Ballets Russes: A Conversation

CHAPTER TEN The Ballets Russes on the Auction Block

CONTRIBUTORS

DONORS

INDEX

ACKNOWLEGMENTS