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Erté Museum Harpers Bazaar Covers (Gouaches)

"The Drawings and gouaches that serve as the basis for the graphics were produced over a fifty-six-year period dating from 1915, and they show Erte's extraordinary efforts as an independent couturier, fashion magazine and book illustrator, and costumer and set designer for musical revues and opera.  They also shed light on his broad intellectual scope and spirited personality.  For example, his knowledge of classical art is clearly manifested in the April, May and June images he created for the Follies-Berger production of Les Rois des Legendes, and his awareness of Eastern mythological specters remains apparent in Masks and Mosques.  Closer inspection of his work likewise conveys Erte's wit, flair, and innovative mind.  In Cosmetic Brush, which the artist executed for a 1932 Harper's Bazaar cover, he cleverly transformed his sleek brush head into his mannequin's arched eyebrow, while Conte Hindou, a stage set design for a sumptuous lotus land, illustrates Erte's unbridled imagination." Excerpt: "Erté, The Last Works")

Most Designs are larger than they appear on the screen
 

Seagulls
Harper's Bazaar Cover Design,
July 1938, 
14-1/2 x 11 inches (36.8 x 27.9 cm)

L'arc en Ciel
Harper's Bazaar Cover Design,
1929
15 x 11 inches
(38.1 x 27.9 cm)

Aquarium
Harper's Bazaar Cover Design,
1923
14 x 12 inches
 (35.6 x 30.5 cm)

Paris Openings, Harper's Bazaar Cover Design,
March 1931,
16 x 12 inches
(40.6 x 30.5 cm)

*Four dress designs for Harper's Bazaar, 1923, Pen and ink, 12 x 8-1/2 inches (30.5 x 21.6 cm)

"As a master Draftsman, Erté Executed his alterations with extraordinary facility.  He was delighted with their premier applications as designs for elegant ensembles, exotic raiment's, or outrageous costumes for films or follies.  In fact, he often recounted how these actually looked when produced, how they draped, and why certain accessories were critical elements in some of this compositions.  He recalled how the formfitting, slight red sheath of his Flapper with its sparkling web appliqué and pearl-stranded fan visually captured the giddy sprit of its Roaring Twenties musical Manhattan Mary, and why long draping sleeves or hand-held accessories were constants in those recherché costumes that he created for the aspiring opera signer Ganna Walska, known for her needling onstage habit of fidgeting with her hands.  Erté tried to cover or curb that distraction with the additions the remain evident in the works entitled Fedora Fur, Fedora Butterfly, and Fedora Fan." (Excerpt: "Erté, The Last Works")

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