info
/
1
·
New York
×
Leon Bakst (1866-1924)“Peasant Woman”
“Peasant Woman”
Watercolor and Pencil 13 x10”
signed and dated 1922 on the lower left
Inscribed, Damia Ballet Design
Leon Bakst 1866-1924 Russian artist who worked and died in Paris. Most famous for his costume designs for the Ballet Russes.
During his visits to Saint Petersburg he taught in Zvantseva's school, where one of his students was Marc Chagall (1908-1910).
In 1914, Bakst was elected a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1922, he broke off his relationship with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. During this year, he visited Baltimore and, specifically Evergreen House - the residence of his friend and patron, art philanthropist Alice Warder Garrett (1877-1952). Having met in Paris in 1914, when Mrs. Garrett was accompanying her diplomat husband in Europe, Bakst soon depended upon his then new American friend as both a confidante and agent.
Alice Garrett became Bakst's representative in the United States upon her return home in 1920, organizing two exhibitions of the artist's work at New York's Knoedler Gallery, as well as subsequent traveling shows.
When in Baltimore, Bakst re-designed the dining room of Evergreen into a shocking acidic yellow and 'Chinese' red confection. The artist subsequently went on to transform the house's small c. 1885 gymnasium into a colorfully Modernist private theatre, which is currently believed to be the only extant private theatre designed by Bakst.
His works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art NY among many others worldwide