Erté (Romain de Tirtoff)

Erté was brought up in St. Petersburg. In 1912 he went to Paris, where he briefly collaborated with Parisian couturier Paul Poiret. He then became a costume designer and began selling his pen-and-ink and gouache fashion illustrations to American fashion houses. From 1916 to 1937 he was under contract to the American fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. (A collection of Harper’s Bazaar illustrations was published in Designs by Erté [1976] with text by Stella Blum.) His highly stylized illustrations depicted models in mannered poses draped in luxurious jewels, feathers, and soft, flowing materials against a background of interiors in the Art Deco style. The same lavish style marked Erté’s theatrical designs. For 35 years he designed elaborately structured opening tableaus, finale scenes, and costumes for the French theatre. He worked for the Folies-Bergère in Paris from 1919 to 1930.  In the 1960s Erté produced lithographs, serigraphs, and sheet-metal sculptures.