Erté (Romaine de Tirtoff)

Erté was born Romain de Tirtoff in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1892. The only son of an admiral in the Imperial Fleet, he was raised amidst Russia’s social elite. As a young boy, he was fascinated by the Persian miniatures he found in his father’s library. These exotic, brightly-patterned designs continued to be important to him and influenced the development of his style. He moved to Paris at the age of eighteen and took the name Erté from the French.

The designs created by Erté during his long and illustrious life influenced not only the world of theatre, film, and fashion, but an entire art movement as well. The genius of the artist is evidenced by an enormous body of work that is considered among the most influential and unique of the 20th century. His legendary career spanned nearly the entire length of his life. In 1912, Erté moved to Paris and his unique talent was immediately recognized by the city’s most established couturiers. In 1915, he began an association with Harper’s Bazaar by designing covers of each of their magazines for the next 22 years. The influence of his work, as a result of the high visibility of this periodical, influenced an entire art movement that was to become known as Art Deco. Throughout this period, the artist also created original costume and fashion designs for many of the era’s most renowned screen actresses, including Joan Crawford, Lillian Gish, Marion Davies, Anna Pavlova, Norma Shearer, and others. His creations for the stage included extravagant designs for productions at such venues as New York’s Radio City Music Hall, the Casino de Paris, and the Paris Opera, as well as for the Folies-Bergères and George White’s Scandals.

At the age of 75, Erté was encouraged to embark on a new career and began to recreate the remarkable designs of his youth in bronze and serigraphy. The Art Deco movement was hence reborn. A lifetime of international success and recognition has ensured this unique artist’s place in the annals of art history, and his original designs grace the permanent collections of prestigious museums throughout the world including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

Erté is perhaps best remembered for the gloriously extravagant costumes and stage sets that he designed for the Folies-Bergère in Paris and George White’s Scandals in New York, which exploit to the full his taste for the exotic and romantic and his appreciation of the sinuous and lyrical human figure.

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