Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.

After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.

On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.

Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.

Leonor Morales

From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press

Our stage designers, Ron and Tiger Waterman made this 7' Audrey II plant. It took 8 months to construct. It was able to swallow actors with ease. Six puppeteers were needed to operate it.

From our production of, "Little Shop of Horrors."

According to legend, Johannes Faustus, a German astrologer in the early 1500s, sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge. Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote The History of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus in 1592. Johann Goethe first published his version of Faust in 1808. Damn Yankees was a musical produced on Broadway in 1955. The plot concerned a fan of the Washington Senators baseball team who sold his soul to the devil in order to help the Senators win against the New York Yankees.

Little Shop was first presented as a black and white film in 1960. It was a low-budget production filmed in only a few days on a small rental set that was scheduled to be demolished. It became a cult classic at a time when low-budget science fiction was all the rage. Jack Nicholson played a masochistic dental patient in the film. In 1982 it was produced as a major musical and played for 2,209 performances on Broadway. In 1986 the movie version was produced starring Rich Moranis, Steve Martin and Ellen Greene. It was directed by Frank Oz.

- Doc

www.drurydrama.com

Oil on canvas; 63 x 75.5 cm.

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

Oil and collage on canvas; 80 x 60 cm.

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

The Vatican pavilion was an oval shaped building topped by a cross, with a curving wall extending from the entrance. The pavilion and its contents had as there theme, "The Church is Christ Living in the World."

The most important work of art at the Fair was Michelangelo's 465 year old (in 1964) masterpiece in carved Carrara marble, the Pieta. The Pieta represents the body of Christ in the arms of His mother just after he was taken down from the cross. The work, six feet long by five feet nine inches high, was shown in a setting created by stage designer Jo Mielziner. Spectators were carried past it on three moving platforms at different heights. There was a walkway for those who wished to view it at their own pace. It was the first time that the Pieta had ever left the Vatican.

At the pavilions center was an exact replica of the excavation made under St. Peter's Basilica by archeologists in the 1940's and identified as St. Peter's burial place. And in the final ground floor room were transparencies of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and a photo exhibit on Catholic sacramental life.

The mezzanine floor had a Catholic chapel that seated 300 persons. Mass was said each morning, and the chapel was open all day.

The art installation "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" at the Tower of London, marks one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies will progressively fill the Tower's famous moat over the summer. Each poppy represents a British military fatality during the war.

The poppies will encircle the iconic landmark, creating not only a spectacular display visible from all around the Tower but also a location for personal reflection. The scale of the installation intends to reflect the magnitude of such an important centenary creating a powerful visual commemoration.

HOUSE OF THE OLD WOMAN (ORCHARD) - CASA DE LA VIEJA (HUERTO)

La Casa de la Vieja se construyó entre 1792 y 1795 imitando una casa de labranza, probably some existing on the farm before becoming a garden. Represents one of the most whimsical samples existing in the park. The interior, now empty, was designed by the painter and stage designer Ángel María Tadey with great profusion of details, between them were standing out a few dolls of natural size provided with movement.

La Casa de la Vieja se construyó entre 1792 y 1795 imitando una casa de labranza, probablemente alguna existente en la finca antes de transformarse en jardín. Supone una de las muestras más caprichosas de las existentes en el parque. El interior, ahora vacío, fue diseñado por el pintor y escenógrafo Ángel María Tadey con gran profusión de detalles, entre ellos destacaban unos muñecos de tamaño natural dotados de movimiento.

103992

The Tower Of London remembers the First World War 1914-1918

The major art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London, marked one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower's famous moat between 17 July and 11 November 2014. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war.

The poppies encircled the iconic landmark, creating not only a spectacular display visible from all around the Tower but also a location for personal reflection. The scale of the installation was intended to reflect the magnitude of such an important centenary and create a powerful visual commemoration.

All of the poppies that made up the installation were sold, raising millions of pounds which were shared equally amongst six service charities.

from Col. W. de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1936 season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden - Scenery by Picasso for "Pulcinella".

The ballet premiered at the Paris Opera on 15 May 1920 - music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Léonide Massine.

© Saúl Tuñón Loureda

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Ópera Estatal de Viena (en alemán: Wiener Staatsoper), ubicada en Viena, Austria, es una de las más importantes compañías de ópera mundiales. Hasta 1920, se llamó Ópera de la Corte de Viena (k.k. Hofoper). Es el centro neurálgico de la vida musical vienesa y uno de los polos de atracción del mundo musical.

El teatro original de la Ópera Estatal (conocido entonces como k. k. Hofoperntheater, Teatro de la Ópera de la Corte Real e Imperial), un edificio neorrenacentista muy criticado por los vieneses cuando se alzó, se construyó entre 1861 y 1869, sobre un proyecto de los arquitectos vieneses Eduard van der Nüll y August Sicard von Sicardsburg. Ambos arquitectos fallecieron antes de ver terminado el edificio (van der Nüll se suicidó y su compañero Sicardsburg murió poco después de un ataque al corazón). En la decoración interior participaron otros renombrados artistas, particularmente el pintor Moritz von Schwind, que pintó los famosos frescos del foyer y la terraza. El teatro fue inaugurado el 25 de mayo de 1869 con la ópera de Mozart Don Giovanni.

Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el 12 de marzo de 1945, el edificio sufrió un bombardeo aéreo y posteriormente un incendio que destruyó totalmente el escenario y la sala de espectadores. Casi todo el decorado y los apoyos para más de 120 óperas con cerca de 150.000 trajes resultaron destruidos. Sólo la fachada principal, la gran escalera y el vestíbulo con los frescos de Schwind se salvaron. La Ópera Estatal se albergó temporalmente en el Theater an der Wien y en la Volksoper.

Justo después del final de la guerra, en mayo de 1945, se anunció que los trabajos de reconstrucción se iniciarían inmediatamente. El proyecto contemplaba la reconstrucción de la sala con un diseño similar al original, pero con decoración más acorde con las tendencias de diseño de la época, si bien se mantuvieron los colores tradicionales, rojo, oro y marfil. Toda la sala se recubrió en madera, con el fin de recuperar la brillante acústica original. Se redujo el número de asientos del patio de butacas y se reestructuró el cuarto piso para eliminar las columnas, que reducían la visibilidad. La fachada, el vestíbulo y el foyer de Schwind se restauraron en su estilo original.

El teatro reconstruido, con 2.284 plazas (en lugar de las 2.881 originales), se reabrió el 5 de noviembre de 1955, poco despúés de la firma del tratado que restableció a Austria como estado independiente, con la representación de la ópera de Beethoven Fidelio dirigida por Karl Böhm.

Entre 1991 y 1993 se renovó completamente toda la zona escénica, instalando plataformas hidráulicas de la última tecnología, así como nuevas instalaciones de suministro eléctrico, calefacción, ventilación y protección contra incendios en todo el edificio. Asimismo, se construyó una nueva sala de ensayos de escena, denominada "Sala Carlos Kleiber". Entre las particularidades del edificio, se puede citar la Orgelsaal (sala del órgano), en la sexta planta, que contiene un gran órgano de 2.500 tubos (el mayor del mundo entre los alojados en teatros de ópera), cuyo sonido se transmite directamente a la sala de espectadores. La misma sala se utiliza en ocasiones para otros efectos acústicos, como el sonido de los yunques en El oro del Rin, de Richard Wagner.1

Durante décadas, desde 1877, el Teatro de la ópera ha sido el lugar de celebración del Baile de la Ópera.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93pera_Estatal_de_Viena

The Vienna State Opera (German: Wiener Staatsoper) is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper). In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian Republic, it was renamed the Vienna State Opera. The members of the Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from its orchestra.

The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstraße commissioned by the Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the house in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. It was built in the Neo-Renaissance style by the renowned Czech architect and contractor Josef Hlávka.

The Ministry of the Interior had commissioned a number of reports into the availability of certain building materials, with the result that stones long not seen in Vienna were used, such as Wöllersdorfer Stein, for plinths and free-standing, simply-divided buttresses, the famously hard stone from Kaisersteinbruch, whose colour was more appropriate than that of Kelheimerstein, for more lushly decorated parts. The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable. Breitenbrunner stone was suggested as a substitute for the Kelheimer stone, and stone from Jois was used as a cheaper alternative to the Kaiserstein. The staircases were constructed from polished Kaiserstein, while most of the rest of the interior was decorated with varieties of marble.

The decision was made to use dimension stone for the exterior of the building. Due to the monumental demand for stone, stone from Sóskút, widely used in Budapest, was also used. Three Viennese masonry companies were employed to supply enough masonry labour: Eduard Hauser (still in existence today), Anton Wasserburger and Moritz Pranter. The foundation stone was laid on 20 May 1863.

The Vienna State Opera is closely linked to the Vienna Philharmonic, which is an incorporated society of its own, but whose members are recruited from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera.

The Wiener Staatsoper is one of the busiest opera houses in the world producing 50 to 60 operas in a repertory system per year and ten ballet productions in more than 350 performances.[3] It is quite common to find a different opera being produced each day of a week. The Staatsoper employs over 1000 people. As of 2008, the annual operating budget of the Staatsoper was 100 million euros with slightly more than 50% as a state subsidy.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was one of the many conductors who have worked in Vienna. During his tenure (1897–1907), Mahler cultivated a new generation of singers, such as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg and Selma Kurz, and recruited a stage designer who replaced the lavish historical stage decors with sparse stage scenery corresponding to modernistic, Jugendstil tastes. Mahler also introduced the practice of dimming the lighting in the theatre during performances, which was initially not appreciated by the audience. However, Mahler's reforms were maintained by his successors.

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan introduced the practice of performing operas exclusively in their original language instead of being translated into German. He also strengthened the ensemble and regular principal singers and introduced the policy of predominantly engaging guest singers. He began a collaboration with La Scala in Milan, in which both productions and orchestrations were shared. This created an opening for the prominent members of the Viennese ensemble to appear in Milan, especially to perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_State_Opera

Oil on canvas; 49.5 x 60.9 cm.

Italian painter and stage designer, born in Udine. Full name Afro Balsadella, but is usually known as Afro; brother of the sculptor Mirko Balsadella (Mirko). Father a leading decorator. Studied at secondary schools specialising in art subjects in Florence and Venice, and had his first one-man exhibition at the Galleria del Milione, Milan, in 1932. Began by painting still lifes, landscapes, portraits and murals. Moved in 1938 to Rome. War service and in the Resistance 1940-4. Developed a near-abstract style in 1947-8 under the influence of Klee and late Cubism. Held regular exhibitions at the Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, from 1950-68 and made frequent visits to the USA, developing a looser, more improvisatory abstract style partly under the influence of Gorky, Kline and de Kooning. Joined the group Otto with Birolli, Corpora, Moreni, Morlotti, Santomaso, Turcato and Vedova in 1952. Painted a mural for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris 1958. Awarded the City of Venice painting prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale and Second Prize at the 1959 Pittsburgh International; also designed sets and costumes for the ballet and the opera. His late works, from c.1970, had more precise shapes. Died in Zurich.

Published in:

Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.2

Altman was born in Vinnytsia, Imperial Russia. From 1902 to 1907 he studied painting and sculpture at the Art College in Odessa. In 1906 he had his first exhibition in Odessa. In 1910 he went to Paris, where he studied at the Free Russian Academy, working in the studio of Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, and had contact with Marc Chagall, Alexander Archipenko, and David Shterenberg. In 1910 he became a member of the group Union of Youth. His famous Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, conceived in Cubist style, was painted in 1914. After 1916 he started to work as a stage designer.

In 1918 he was the member of the Board for Artistic Matters within the Department of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment together with Malevich, Baranoff-Rossine and Shevchenko. In the same year he had an exhibition with the group Jewish Society for the Furthering of the Arts in Moscow, together with Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, El Lissitzky and the others. In 1920 he became a member of the Institute for Artistic Culture, together with Kasimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin and others. In the same year, he participated in the exhibition From Impressionism to Cubism in the Museum of Painterly Culture in Petrograd. From 1920 to 1928 he worked on stage designs for the Habimah Theatre and the Jewish State Theatre in Moscow. In 1923 a volume of his Jewish graphic art was published in Berlin. In 1925 he participated in Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Moderns (Art Deco) in Paris. His first solo exhibition in Leningrad was in 1926.

Giovanni Paolo Pannini or Panini was an Italian painter and architect, mainly known as one of the vedutisti or (veduta, or "view painters").

As a young man, Pannini trained in his native town of Piacenza as a stage designer. In 1711, he moved to Rome, where he studied drawing with Benedetto Luti and became famous as a decorator of palaces, including the Villa Patrizi (1718–1725) and the Palazzo de Carolis (1720). As a painter, Pannini is best known for his vistas of Rome, in which he took a particular interest in the city's antiquities. Among his most famous works are the interior of the Pantheon, and his vedute — paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome. Most of his works, specially those of ruins have a substantial fanciful and unreal embellishment characteristic of capriccio themes.

In 1719, Pannini was admitted to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. He taught in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca and the Académie de France, where he influenced Jean-Honoré Fragonard. His studio included Hubert Robert and his son Francesco Panini. His style would influence a number of other vedutisti, such as his pupil Antonio Joli, as well as Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto, who sought to appease the need by visitors for painted "postcards" depicting the Italian environs.

Ink and essence on paper; 8.9 x 7.9 cm.

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

© Saúl Tuñón Loureda

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Ópera Estatal de Viena (en alemán: Wiener Staatsoper), ubicada en Viena, Austria, es una de las más importantes compañías de ópera mundiales. Hasta 1920, se llamó Ópera de la Corte de Viena (k.k. Hofoper). Es el centro neurálgico de la vida musical vienesa y uno de los polos de atracción del mundo musical.

El teatro original de la Ópera Estatal (conocido entonces como k. k. Hofoperntheater, Teatro de la Ópera de la Corte Real e Imperial), un edificio neorrenacentista muy criticado por los vieneses cuando se alzó, se construyó entre 1861 y 1869, sobre un proyecto de los arquitectos vieneses Eduard van der Nüll y August Sicard von Sicardsburg. Ambos arquitectos fallecieron antes de ver terminado el edificio (van der Nüll se suicidó y su compañero Sicardsburg murió poco después de un ataque al corazón). En la decoración interior participaron otros renombrados artistas, particularmente el pintor Moritz von Schwind, que pintó los famosos frescos del foyer y la terraza. El teatro fue inaugurado el 25 de mayo de 1869 con la ópera de Mozart Don Giovanni.

Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el 12 de marzo de 1945, el edificio sufrió un bombardeo aéreo y posteriormente un incendio que destruyó totalmente el escenario y la sala de espectadores. Casi todo el decorado y los apoyos para más de 120 óperas con cerca de 150.000 trajes resultaron destruidos. Sólo la fachada principal, la gran escalera y el vestíbulo con los frescos de Schwind se salvaron. La Ópera Estatal se albergó temporalmente en el Theater an der Wien y en la Volksoper.

Justo después del final de la guerra, en mayo de 1945, se anunció que los trabajos de reconstrucción se iniciarían inmediatamente. El proyecto contemplaba la reconstrucción de la sala con un diseño similar al original, pero con decoración más acorde con las tendencias de diseño de la época, si bien se mantuvieron los colores tradicionales, rojo, oro y marfil. Toda la sala se recubrió en madera, con el fin de recuperar la brillante acústica original. Se redujo el número de asientos del patio de butacas y se reestructuró el cuarto piso para eliminar las columnas, que reducían la visibilidad. La fachada, el vestíbulo y el foyer de Schwind se restauraron en su estilo original.

El teatro reconstruido, con 2.284 plazas (en lugar de las 2.881 originales), se reabrió el 5 de noviembre de 1955, poco despúés de la firma del tratado que restableció a Austria como estado independiente, con la representación de la ópera de Beethoven Fidelio dirigida por Karl Böhm.

Entre 1991 y 1993 se renovó completamente toda la zona escénica, instalando plataformas hidráulicas de la última tecnología, así como nuevas instalaciones de suministro eléctrico, calefacción, ventilación y protección contra incendios en todo el edificio. Asimismo, se construyó una nueva sala de ensayos de escena, denominada "Sala Carlos Kleiber". Entre las particularidades del edificio, se puede citar la Orgelsaal (sala del órgano), en la sexta planta, que contiene un gran órgano de 2.500 tubos (el mayor del mundo entre los alojados en teatros de ópera), cuyo sonido se transmite directamente a la sala de espectadores. La misma sala se utiliza en ocasiones para otros efectos acústicos, como el sonido de los yunques en El oro del Rin, de Richard Wagner.1

Durante décadas, desde 1877, el Teatro de la ópera ha sido el lugar de celebración del Baile de la Ópera.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93pera_Estatal_de_Viena

The Vienna State Opera (German: Wiener Staatsoper) is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper). In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian Republic, it was renamed the Vienna State Opera. The members of the Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from its orchestra.

The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstraße commissioned by the Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the house in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. It was built in the Neo-Renaissance style by the renowned Czech architect and contractor Josef Hlávka.

The Ministry of the Interior had commissioned a number of reports into the availability of certain building materials, with the result that stones long not seen in Vienna were used, such as Wöllersdorfer Stein, for plinths and free-standing, simply-divided buttresses, the famously hard stone from Kaisersteinbruch, whose colour was more appropriate than that of Kelheimerstein, for more lushly decorated parts. The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable. Breitenbrunner stone was suggested as a substitute for the Kelheimer stone, and stone from Jois was used as a cheaper alternative to the Kaiserstein. The staircases were constructed from polished Kaiserstein, while most of the rest of the interior was decorated with varieties of marble.

The decision was made to use dimension stone for the exterior of the building. Due to the monumental demand for stone, stone from Sóskút, widely used in Budapest, was also used. Three Viennese masonry companies were employed to supply enough masonry labour: Eduard Hauser (still in existence today), Anton Wasserburger and Moritz Pranter. The foundation stone was laid on 20 May 1863.

The Vienna State Opera is closely linked to the Vienna Philharmonic, which is an incorporated society of its own, but whose members are recruited from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera.

The Wiener Staatsoper is one of the busiest opera houses in the world producing 50 to 60 operas in a repertory system per year and ten ballet productions in more than 350 performances.[3] It is quite common to find a different opera being produced each day of a week. The Staatsoper employs over 1000 people. As of 2008, the annual operating budget of the Staatsoper was 100 million euros with slightly more than 50% as a state subsidy.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was one of the many conductors who have worked in Vienna. During his tenure (1897–1907), Mahler cultivated a new generation of singers, such as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg and Selma Kurz, and recruited a stage designer who replaced the lavish historical stage decors with sparse stage scenery corresponding to modernistic, Jugendstil tastes. Mahler also introduced the practice of dimming the lighting in the theatre during performances, which was initially not appreciated by the audience. However, Mahler's reforms were maintained by his successors.

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan introduced the practice of performing operas exclusively in their original language instead of being translated into German. He also strengthened the ensemble and regular principal singers and introduced the policy of predominantly engaging guest singers. He began a collaboration with La Scala in Milan, in which both productions and orchestrations were shared. This created an opening for the prominent members of the Viennese ensemble to appear in Milan, especially to perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_State_Opera

The Tower Of London remembers the First World War 1914-1918

The major art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London, marked one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower's famous moat between 17 July and 11 November 2014. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war.

The poppies encircled the iconic landmark, creating not only a spectacular display visible from all around the Tower but also a location for personal reflection. The scale of the installation was intended to reflect the magnitude of such an important centenary and create a powerful visual commemoration.

All of the poppies that made up the installation were sold, raising millions of pounds which were shared equally amongst six service charities.

Oil on canvas; 131 x 111 cm.

Italian painter and stage designer. His interest in art was encouraged by his father, the art historian Umberto Gnoli, and his mother, the painter and ceramicist Annie de Garon, but his only training consisted of lessons in drawing and printmaking from the Italian painter and printmaker Carlo Alberto Petrucci (b 1881). After holding his first one-man exhibition in 1950, he studied stage design briefly in 1952 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome; he enjoyed immediate success in this field, for example designing a production of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It for the Old Vic Theatre in London in 1955. He then began to live part-time in New York, where he began to work as an illustrator for magazines such as Sports Illustrated. During this period he drew inspiration from earlier art, especially from master printers such as Jacques Callot and Hogarth, from whom he derived his taste for compositions enlivened by large numbers of figures stylized to the point of caricature. In other works he emphasized the patterns of textiles or walls, boldly succumbing to the seduction of manual dexterity and fantasy in a style that was completely out of step with the prevailing trends of the 1950s.

Rosenberg Lev Samoylovich called Bakst was a painter and a stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Peterburg, attending the Academy of Arts. Bakst traveled regularly to Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists at the Academie Julian. With Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghlev he was a founder of the WORLD OF ART group in 1898. In 1906 he became a drawing teacher at the Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private school in St Peterburg.

Bakst realized his greatest artistic success in the theatre. In 1909 he collaborated with Diaghilev in the founding of Ballets Russes, where he acted as artistic director, and his stages designs rapidly brought him international fame. Between 1909 and 1921 his name became inseparable from the Ballets Russes. He also designed for other celebrities, included the artist producers Vera Komissarzhervskaya in 1906, Ida Rubinstein between 1911 to 1924. He settled in Paris in 1912, having being exiled from St Peterburg where, as a Jew he was unable to obtain a residence permit.

Bakst was arguably the most accomplish painter, as well as designer, in the World of Art group. His early preferences were for Realist painters and Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. The animated line and relaxed postures in his portraiture also suggest the influence of his close friend Valentin Serov. Through Benois and his circle Bakst was attracted to "retrospectivism" and Orientalism, and motifs from ancient Greece and Egypt became signatures in his easel paintings and theoretical work. The Benois circle also introduced him to Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

Ancient Mole (stage designer extraordinaire)

Visit this location at SL20B - The Mandala Stage in Second Life

Russian painter, mainly in watercolour, art historian and stage designer. Born in St Petersburg of French and Italian descent, son of Nikolai Benois, architect to the Imperial Palaces in Peterhof. Briefly attended a part-time course in stage design at the Academy of Arts 1887, but otherwise self-taught as an artist. Studied law at the University of St Petersburg 1890-4, and while still a student formed a circle with a number of friends, including Diaghilev, Somov and Bakst, for the purpose of studying art. This later developed into the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva), which held exhibitions and published a journal of the same name, 1898-1904. Travelled widely in Europe and was influenced by the art of the eighteenth century. Became very active and influential as a stage designer, including sets and costumes for Le Pavillon d'Armide 1907 and (for Diaghilev) Petrushka 1911 and Le Rossignol 1914. Edited the periodical Khudozhestvennye sokrovishcha Rossii (Art Treasures of Russia) 1901-3, and wrote several books on art and volumes of memoirs. Curator of Painting at the Hermitage 1918-25, then moved in 1926 to Paris, where he continued to paint and design for the theatre. Died in Paris.

Published in:

Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.48

Oil on canvas; 73 x 92 cm.

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

《海納穆勒‧四重奏》

Quartett von Heiner Mϋller.

製作人：陳汗青│Producer: Yukio Nitta

舞台設計：梁若珊│Stage Designer: Ruo-shan Liang

燈光設計：黃諾行 │Lighting Designer: Nuo-hsing Huang

音樂設計：林芳宜│Composer：Fan-yi Lin

服裝設計：李育昇 │Costume Designer: Yu-shen Li

動作設計：周書毅│Movement Director: Shu-yi Chou

影像創作：周東彥│Multi-media Designer: Tung-yen Chou

導演助理：許哲彬 │Direction Assistant: Tora Hsu

平面美術：聶永真│Graphic & Art Designer: Aaron Nieh

攝影：編號223、林建文│Photographer: Zhi-peng Lin (No. 223), Chien-wen Lin

場景：姚國禎│Scene Designer: Kuo-chen Yao

梳化：謝夢遷 │Stylist：Meng-Chian Hsieh

協力：藍祺聖、吳仲倫│Associate: Chih-shang Lan, Chun-lun Wu

英文翻譯：葉炫伽Translator: Hsuang-chieh Yeh

"Seas of Red" - Poppy display at evolving installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies will progressively fill the Tower’s famous moat.

Oil on canvas; 94 x 126 cm

German architect, painter, and designer, active mainly in Berlin. Schinkel was the greatest German architect of the 19th century, but until 1815, when he gained a senior appointment in the Public Works Department of Prussia (from which position he effectively redesigned Berlin), he worked mainly as a painter and stage designer. His paintings are highly Romantic landscapes somewhat in the spirit of Friedrich, although more anecdotal in detail (Gothic Cathedral by a River, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1813-14). He continued working as a stage designer until the 1830s, and in this field ranks among the greatest artists of his period. His most famous designs were for Mozart's The Magic Flute (1815), in which he combined the clarity and logic of his architectural style with a feeling of mystery and fantasy.

The Tower Of London remembers the First World War 1914-1918

The major art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London, marked one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War. Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower's famous moat between 17 July and 11 November 2014. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war.

The poppies encircled the iconic landmark, creating not only a spectacular display visible from all around the Tower but also a location for personal reflection. The scale of the installation was intended to reflect the magnitude of such an important centenary and create a powerful visual commemoration.

All of the poppies that made up the installation were sold, raising millions of pounds which were shared equally amongst six service charities.

Shot in Dungeness E Sussex, Derek Jarman's Cottage; Prospect

Derek Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, artist, and writer.

Jarman's work broke new ground in creating and expanding the fledgling form of 'the pop video' in England, and as a forthright and prominent gay rights activist. Several volumes of his diaries have been published.

Jarman also directed the 1989 tour by the UK duo Pet Shop Boys. By pop concert standards this was a highly theatrical event with costume and specially shot films accompanying the individual songs. Jarman was the stage director of Sylvano Bussotti's opera L'Ispirazione, first staged in Florence in 1998.

He is also remembered for his famous shingle cottage-garden, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow of the Dungeness power station. The house was built in tarred timber. Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage is the first stanza and the last five lines of the last stanza of John Donne's poem, The Sun Rising. The cottage's beach garden was made using local materials and has been the subject of several books. At this time, Jarman also began painting again (see the book: Evil Queen: The Last Paintings, 1994).

Jarman was the author of several books including his autobiography Dancing Ledge, a collection of poetry A Finger in the Fishes Mouth, two volumes of diaries Modern Nature and Smiling In Slow Motion and two treatises on his work in film and art The Last of England (also published as Kicking the Pricks) and Chroma. Other notable published works include film scripts (Up in the Air, Blue, War Requiem, Caravaggio, Queer Edward II and Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/The Derek Jarman Film), a study of his garden at Dungeness Derek Jarman's Garden, and At Your Own Risk, a defiant celebration of gay sexuality.

Self-Portrait , ca. 1946.

Offset lithograph.

Published frontispiece for

Arthur Szyk, Ink and Blood, New York: The Heritage Press, 1946.

LC-USZC4-7398 (color film copy transparency)

Copyright Deposit

Arthur Szyk was a graphic artist, book illustrator, stage designer and caricaturist. He was born into a Jewish family in Łódź, in the part of Poland which was under Russian rule in the 19th century. He always regarded himself both as a Pole and a Jew. From 1921, he lived and created his works mainly in France and Poland, and in 1937 he moved to the United Kingdom. In 1940 he settled permanently in the United States, where he was granted American citizenship in 1948.

Arthur Szyk became a renowned graphic artist and book illustrator as early as the interwar period – his works were exhibited and published not only in Poland, but also in France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the United States. However, he gained real popularity through his war caricatures, in which, after the outbreak of World War II, he depicted the leaders of the Axis powers – mainly Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito. After the war, he also devoted himself to political issues, this time supporting the creation of Israel.

Szyk's work is characterized in its material content by social and political commitment, and in its formal aspect by its rejection of modernism and drawing on the traditions of medieval and renaissance painting, especially illuminated manuscripts from those periods. Unlike most caricaturists, Szyk always showed great attention to the coloristic effects and details in his works.

Today, Szyk is a well-known and often exhibited artist only in his last home country – the United States. In Europe, since the late 1990s exhibitions of his art has been mounted in the Polish cities of Kraków, Warsaw, and Łódź as well as in Berlin, Germany. The recent publication of a Polish-language edition Szyk's biography and public broadcasts of the documentary film "Arthur Szyk - Illuminator" (Marta Tv & Film, Telewizja Polska (Łódź), 2005) also have improved Szyk's stature in his mother country, Poland.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJmRWQc6Yg

52 weeks of 2015, Week 34

Theme: Hockney Mosaic

Category: Technique

Polaroid collage inspired by Hockney. Using Polaroid style images of a single subject, arranged in a patchwork to make a composite image. Frameless version is in the first comment.

In the early 1980s, Hockney began to produce photo collages, which he called "joiners", first using Polaroid prints and subsequently 35mm, commercially-processed color prints. Using Polaroid snaps or photolab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a patchwork to make a composite image. An early photomontage was of his mother. Because the photographs are taken from different perspectives and at slightly different times, the result is work that has an affinity with Cubism, one of Hockney's major aims—discussing the way human vision works. Some pieces are landscapes, such as Pearblossom Highway #2, others portraits, such as Kasmin 1982, and My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982.

David Hockney, OM CH RA (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer...

An important contributor to the Pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century...

Wikipedia

Andreas Schelfhout (February 16, 1787, The Hague – April 19, 1870, The Hague) was a Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer, known for his landscape paintings.

He belongs to the Romantic movement. His Dutch winter scenes and frozen canals with skaters were already famous during his lifetime. He became one of the most influential Dutch landscape artists of his century.

He started as a house painter in the framing business of his father. He already started painting pictures in his spare time. After a well-received first exhibition in The Hague, his father sent him to receive proper training to Joannes Breckenheimer (1772–1856), a stage designer, in The Hague. He learned not only the technical aspects of painting, but also made detailed studies of the 17th-century Dutch landscape artists Meindert Hobbema en Jacob van Ruisdael.

The New Ashmolean

Founded in 1683, The Ashmolean re-opened on Saturday 7th November 2009. Their new display approach is "crossing culture crossing time." It was my first glimpse today, the much loved older museum is still here, but now enormously extended and plenty more to enjoy.

Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Ashmolean is currently undergoing a £61 million redevelopment. Award-winning architect Rick Mather has designed a new building to replace all but the Grade I listed Cockerell building. His design will double the existing gallery space, allow environmental control, and create a dedicated Education Centre and conservation facilities.

I've tried to show something of the atmosphere and texture of the museum in many of the photos, I also wanted to convey the sense of movement and people's interaction with the art objects, therefor razor sharp clarity (were I to achieve that) was not my number one objective. This set will grow as I explore the new galleries, I hope you'll forgive me if I do not tag or describe everything right away as there is so much to take in! Martin Beek Oxford, November 2009

Gouache, ink, and pencil on paper; 41.9 x 29.5 cm.

Jörg Immendorff was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor. He studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys. The academy expelled him because of some of his left-wing political activities and neo-dadaist actions. From 1969 to 1980 he worked as an art teacher at a public school, and then as a free artist, holding visiting professorships all over Europe. In 1989 he became professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and in 1996 he became professor at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf -- the same school that had dismissed him as a student.

His paintings are sometimes reminiscent of surrealism and often use irony and heavy symbolism to convey political ideas. He named one of his first acclaimed works "Hört auf zu malen!" ("Stop painting!"). He was a member of the German art movement Neue Wilde. Best known is his Cafe Deutschland series of sixteen large paintings (1977-1984) that were inspired by Renato Guttuso’s Caffè Greco; in these crowded colorful pictures, Immendorff had disco-goers symbolize the conflict between East and West Germany. Since the 1970s, he worked closely with the painter A. R. Penck from Dresden in East Germany. He created several stage designs, including two for the Salzburg Festival. In 1984 he opened the bar La Paloma in Hamburg St. Pauli and created a large bronze sculpture of Hans Albers there. He also contributed to the design of André Heller's avant-garde amusement park "Luna, Luna" in 1987. Immendorff created various sculptures; one spectacular example is a 25 m tall iron sculpture in the form of an oak tree trunk, erected in Riesa in 1999.

In 1997 he won the best endowed art prize in the world, the MARCO prize of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey, Mexico. In the following year he received the merit medal (Bundesverdienstkreuz) of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a friend and the favorite painter of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who chose Immendorff to paint the official portrait of Schröder for the Bundeskanzlerleramt. The portrait, which was completed by Immendorff's assistants, was revealed to the public in January 2007; the massive work has ironic character, showing the former Chancellor in stern heroic pose, in the colors of the German flag, painted in the style of an icon, surrounded by little monkeys. These "painter monkeys" were a recurring theme in Immendorff's work, serving as an ironic commentary on the artist's business.

Immendorff was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 1998. When he could not paint with his left hand any more, he switched to the right. As of 2006, he used a wheelchair full-time and did not paint anymore; instead he directed his assistants to paint following his instructions. On May 27, 2007, at age 61, he succumbed to the disease.

Panel; 90 x 120 cm.

Swedish painter, draughtsman, tapestry and stage designer. After studying under various artists in Tumba and elsewhere, in 1922–3 he attended the Konsthögskolan in Stockholm and in 1922 visited Berne, Nuremberg and Berlin. His early works, such as Jeårj (1923; Stockholm, Mod. Mus.), were loosely painted and naive in appearance and drew on vernacular art. In 1924 he visited Paris and Italy, and in 1924–5 he helped decorate the cinema in Malmö, one of numerous early decorative projects. In 1925 he was a founder-member of the Fri Konst group of artists, which included Carl Alexandersson (1897–1941), Sven Hempel (1896–1944) and others. The following year the membership was expanded to nine by the addition of such artists as Gustav Alexanderson (b 1901) to form the Nio Unga (Nine Young Men) group. Erixson travelled extensively around Europe in the late 1920s, and in 1932, after the dissolution of Nio Unga, he was a founder-member of Färg och Form (Colour and Form) with whom he exhibited thereafter. His painting of this period retained the earlier naivety but became more expressive, as in Dance Hall at Telemarken (1931; Stockholm, Mod. Mus.). After travels in Spain and Morocco in 1935–6 Erixson designed two large tapestry cartoons for the Konserthus in Göteborg, which were executed by the Gobelins. In 1938–40 he executed two large frescoes for the chapel at Skogskyrkogardens crematorium in Stockholm. From 1942–3 he produced painted glass windows for the St Gertrud chapel at Malmö crematorium, and in 1943 he became a professor at the Konstakademi in Stockholm. Erixson produced numerous theatrical set designs in the 1940s and 1950s, such as those for Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding (1944), and Shakespeare’s Richard III (1946) and Romeo and Juliet (1953), which were performed at the Dramaten theatre in Stockholm. He continued to paint interior scenes, townscapes and landscapes in this period, such as Autumn in Tattby (1944; Göteborg, Kstmus.), which still showed the influence of folk art. His later work was of much the same style though the details were pared away as in the powerful Memory of Nacka Hospital (1965; see 1969–70 exh. cat.). He was also involved in further decorative projects, producing cartoons, painted windows and theatre designs. Together with Bror Hjorth, Erixson was influential in revitalizing the folk art tradition in Sweden.

Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

Scenes from the Vatican Pavilion.

The Pieta

From the 1965 guide book:

The Pieta represents the body of Christ in His mother's arms, just after He was taken from the cross. The statue is displayed in a setting by stage designer Jo Mielziner. Guest may view it from moving platforms.

Oil, wood; 65 x 54.5 cm.

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press

Tempera on paper; 39.5 x 41.3 cm

Swiss painter, draughtsman, sculptor and stage designer. He took an apprenticeship as a draughtsman-architect (1924–7) and then studied at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Lucerne (1927–8). Between 1928 and 1929 he stayed for the first time in Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian. He continued his training at the Vereinigte Staatschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst, Berlin (1929–30). The works of this period are signed François Grècque, a pseudonym that shows his admiration for ancient Greek art, traces of which are found in his works. In the course of many visits to Paris between 1932 and 1934, he had contacts with many artists, including Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Henry Moore, and he was strongly influenced by the works of Braque and Picasso. In October 1933 he joined the Abstraction–Création group. In 1935 he collaborated in the exhibition Thèse, antithèse, synthèse at the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne, and in the same year he won a competition organized by that city, which involved the creation of a fresco, The Three Graces of Lucerne, to decorate the railway station. Many official commissions for frescoes or mural reliefs followed.

Oil on canvas.

Mexican painter, printmaker, illustrator and stage designer. In 1903 he began studying painting in Guadalajara under Félix Bernardelli, an Italian who had established a school of painting and music there, and he produced his first illustrations for Revista moderna, a magazine that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo, wrote. In 1905 he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, where Diego Rivera was also studying, and won a grant to study in Europe. After two years in Madrid, Montenegro moved in 1907 to Paris, where he continued his studies and had his first contact with Cubism, meeting Picasso, Braque and Gris.

After a short stay in Mexico, Montenegro returned to Paris. At the outbreak of World War I he moved to Barcelona and from there to Mallorca, where he lived as a fisherman for the next four years. During his stay in Europe he assimilated various influences, in particular from Symbolism, from Art Nouveau (especially Aubrey Beardsley) and from William Blake.

On his return to Mexico, Montenegro worked closely with José Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Public Education during the presidency of Alvaro Obregón in the early 1920s, faithfully following his innovative ideas on murals and accompanying him on journeys in Mexico and abroad. He was put in charge of the Departamento de Artes Plásticas in 1921 and was invited by Vasconcelos to ‘decorate’ the walls of the former convent, the Colegio Máximo de S Pedro y S Pablo in Mexico City. The first of these works, executed in 1922, consisted of the mural Tree of Life , relating the origin and destiny of man, and two designs for richly ornamented stained-glass windows influenced by popular art: Guadalajara Tap-dance and The Parakeet-seller. They were followed by two further murals in the same building: the Festival of the Holy Cross (1923–4), representing the popular festival of 3 May celebrated by bricklayers and stonemasons, and Resurrection (1931–3), with a geometric composition bearing a slight Cubist influence. Further murals followed, including Spanish America (1924; Mexico City, Bib. Ibero-Amer. & B.A.), an allegory of the historical and spiritual union of Latin America in the form of a map, and The Story, also known as Aladdin’s Lamp (1926; Mexico City, Cent. Escolar Benito Juárez), a formally designed painting with Oriental figures similar in style to a mural made for Vasconcelos’s private offices.

Although Montenegro claimed to be a ‘subrealist’ rather than a Surrealist, in his easel paintings he mixed reality and fantasy; two such works, which fall well within the bounds of Surrealism, were shown in 1940 at the International Exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. In his later work Montenegro evolved an abstract style, although he never lost his interest in popular, pre-Hispanic and colonial art. He was also a fine portrait painter, and from the 1940s to the 1960s he produced a splendid series of self-portraits in which he is shown reflected in a convex mirror, thus combining elements of Mannerism and popular art. He illustrated books, made incursions into stage design, working for both the ballet and the theatre, and in 1934 created the Museo de Arte Popular in the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, becoming its first director.

Leonor Morales

From Grove Art Online

© 2009 Oxford University Press

Oil on canvas mounted on fiberglass; 46.3 x 36 cm.

Eugene Berman Biography

(b St Petersburg, 4 Nov 1899; d Rome, 14 Dec 1972). Russian painter and stage designer. His family moved to Western Europe in 1908 and his basic training was in Germany, Switzerland and France (apart from a brief residence in St Petersburg in 1914–18, when he received lessons in art from the painter Pavel Naumov and the architect Sergey Gruzenberg). In 1919 he enrolled at the Académie Ranson in Paris, attending courses under Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis, and two years later he exhibited at the Galerie Druet, Paris. From the late 1930s Berman worked increasingly in the USA, creating designs for ballet and other musical productions, for example for the Music Festival in Hartford, CT, in 1936. In spite of his cosmopolitan background, Berman maintained close connections with Russian artists, critics and dancers, collaborating, for example, with Serge Lifar on the production of Icare in Monte Carlo in 1938.

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Oil and sand on canvas; 101 x 149 cm.

(b Faenza, 4 Aug 1909; d Rome, 5 April 1981). Italian painter, illustrator and stage designer. He began his training in Faenza in the workshop of the Italian painter and ceramicist Mario Ortolani (1901-55). After living briefly in Bologna (1927) and Paris (1928) he settled in Rome in 1929, first exhibiting his work at the Venice Biennale in the following year. His paintings at this time, such as Nude (Susanna after her Bath) (1929; Faenza, Pin. Com.), were characterized by an emphasis on tonal relationships and on the influence of the Scuola Romana. In 1934 he began to work with growing success as an illustrator for the journals Quadrivio and Italia letteraria. The contacts he established with Paris were intensified with his move there in 1947, resulting in three one-man shows at the Galerie Rive Gauche (in 1950, 1953 and 1957), and in his paintings he evolved a cautious balance between the representation and the disassembling of the image. Some of his best-known series of paintings date from this time, including his Cathedrals (e.g. Cathedral with Still-life and Dog, 1960; Rome, Vatican, Col. A. Relig. Mod.), pictures of town squares populated by acrobats and musicians, and later female nudes and a series entitled Mermaids.

Oil on canvas.

Rosenberg Lev Samoylovich called Bakst was a painter and a stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Peterburg, attending the Academy of Arts. Bakst traveled regularly to Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists at the Academie Julian. With Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghlev he was a founder of the WORLD OF ART group in 1898. In 1906 he became a drawing teacher at the Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private school in St Peterburg.

Bakst realized his greatest artistic success in the theatre. In 1909 he collaborated with Diaghilev in the founding of Ballets Russes, where he acted as artistic director, and his stages designs rapidly brought him international fame. Between 1909 and 1921 his name became inseparable from the Ballets Russes. He also designed for other celebrities, included the artist producers Vera Komissarzhervskaya in 1906, Ida Rubinstein between 1911 to 1924. He settled in Paris in 1912, having being exiled from St Peterburg where, as a Jew he was unable to obtain a residence permit.

Bakst was arguably the most accomplish painter, as well as designer, in the World of Art group. His early preferences were for Realist painters and Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. The animated line and relaxed postures in his portraiture also suggest the influence of his close friend Valentin Serov. Through Benois and his circle Bakst was attracted to "retrospectivism" and Orientalism, and motifs from ancient Greece and Egypt became signatures in his easel paintings and theoretical work. The Benois circle also introduced him to Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

From 5 August 2014 to 11 November 2014, a major artistic installation entitled 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' sees the Tower of London's famous dry moat filled with over 800,000 ceramic poppies to create a powerful visual commemoration for the First World War Centenary. The installation, in collaboration with ceramic artist Paul Cummins and theatre stage designer Tom Piper, was unveiled on 5 August 2014, one hundred years since the first full day of Britain's involvement in the First World War.

www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary/poppie...

Metal and leather on wood; 24 3/4 x 20 7/8 in.

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin, Ukrainian painter, sculptor, and architect remembered for his visionary “Monument to the Third International” in Moscow, 1920.

Tatlin was educated at the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1910. Late in 1913 he went to Paris, where he visited Pablo Picasso, whose reliefs in sheet iron, wood, and cardboard made a deep impression on him. Returning to Moscow, Tatlin created constructions that he called “painting reliefs,” which he exhibited at a Futurist exhibition held in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in February 1915. He became the leader of a group of Moscow artists who tried to apply engineering techniques to the construction of sculpture. This developed into a movement known as Constructivism.

This type of avant-garde art continued for a brief period after the Russian Revolution of 1917, during which time Tatlin created his most famous work—the “Monument to the Third International,” which was one of the first buildings conceived entirely in abstract terms. It was commissioned in 1919 by the department of fine arts and exhibited in the form of a model 22 feet (6.7 m) high at the exhibition of the VIII Congress of the Soviets in December 1920. A striking design, it consisted of a leaning spiral iron framework supporting a glass cylinder, a glass cone, and a glass cube, each of which could be rotated at different speeds. The monument’s interior would have contained halls for lectures, conferences, and other activities. The monument was to be the world’s tallest structure—more than 1,300 feet (396 m) tall—but it was never built owing to the Soviet government’s disapproval of non-figurative art.

About 1927 Tatlin began experimentation with a glider that resembled a giant insect. The glider, which he called Letatlin, never flew, but it engaged his interest throughout his later life. After 1933 he worked largely as a stage designer.

Oil on canvas; 200 x 150 cm.

Jörg Immendorff was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor. He studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys. The academy expelled him because of some of his left-wing political activities and neo-dadaist actions. From 1969 to 1980 he worked as an art teacher at a public school, and then as a free artist, holding visiting professorships all over Europe. In 1989 he became professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and in 1996 he became professor at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf -- the same school that had dismissed him as a student.

His paintings are sometimes reminiscent of surrealism and often use irony and heavy symbolism to convey political ideas. He named one of his first acclaimed works "Hört auf zu malen!" ("Stop painting!"). He was a member of the German art movement Neue Wilde. Best known is his Cafe Deutschland series of sixteen large paintings (1977-1984) that were inspired by Renato Guttuso’s Caffè Greco; in these crowded colorful pictures, Immendorff had disco-goers symbolize the conflict between East and West Germany. Since the 1970s, he worked closely with the painter A. R. Penck from Dresden in East Germany. He created several stage designs, including two for the Salzburg Festival. In 1984 he opened the bar La Paloma in Hamburg St. Pauli and created a large bronze sculpture of Hans Albers there. He also contributed to the design of André Heller's avant-garde amusement park "Luna, Luna" in 1987. Immendorff created various sculptures; one spectacular example is a 25 m tall iron sculpture in the form of an oak tree trunk, erected in Riesa in 1999.

In 1997 he won the best endowed art prize in the world, the MARCO prize of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey, Mexico. In the following year he received the merit medal (Bundesverdienstkreuz) of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a friend and the favorite painter of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who chose Immendorff to paint the official portrait of Schröder for the Bundeskanzlerleramt. The portrait, which was completed by Immendorff's assistants, was revealed to the public in January 2007; the massive work has ironic character, showing the former Chancellor in stern heroic pose, in the colors of the German flag, painted in the style of an icon, surrounded by little monkeys. These "painter monkeys" were a recurring theme in Immendorff's work, serving as an ironic commentary on the artist's business.

Immendorff was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 1998. When he could not paint with his left hand any more, he switched to the right. As of 2006, he used a wheelchair full-time and did not paint anymore; instead he directed his assistants to paint following his instructions. On May 27, 2007, at age 61, he succumbed to the disease.

German collectors card by Helmstedter Margarinewerk GMBH, Helmstedt. Photo: MIchaelis / Eichberg-Film / Panorama. Peter Pasetti in Dein Mund verspricht mir Liebe/Your mouth promises me love (Max Neufeld, 1954). Gift by Didier Hanson.

Peter Pasetti (1916–1996) was a German stage, television and film actor. The handsome and incisive character actor also played a number of leading roles in post-Second World War productions such as the operetta film Eine Nacht in Venedig/A Night in Venice (1953). From the late 1950s he appeared increasingly on television.

Peter Viktor Rolf Pasetti was born in Munich in the German Empire in 1916. His father Leo Pasetti was an architect and stage designer for the Bayerischen Staatsoper. He studied music and acting, and made his stage debut at the Bayerischen Landesbühne. In 1940 he made his film debut in the historical comedy Das Fräulein von Barnhelm/The Girl from Barnhelm (Hans Schweikart, 1940) starring Käthe Gold. It is an adaptation of the classic play Minna von Barnhelm (1767) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He also had a small part in the drama Venus vor Gericht/Venus on Trial (Hans H. Zerlett, 1941), starring Hannes Stelzer, Hansi Knoteck and Paul Dahlke. The film was part of the Nazi's campaign against degenerate art, and depicts the trial of a young artist who has resisted the trend towards it. Then World War II caused a break in his film career. After the war, Peter Pasetti belonged to the Münchner Kammerspiele, from 1947 till 1979. In 1948 he returned to the screen in the comedy Die kupferne Hochzeit/The Copper Wedding (Heinz Rühmann, 1948) with Hertha Feiler. His next films were Der Herr vom andern Stern/The Lord from another planet (Heinz Hilpert, 1948) starring Heinz Rühmann, and Du bist nicht allein/You are not alone (Paul Verhoeven, 1949). In the musical Sensation in San Remo (Georg Jacoby, 1951), Peter Pasetti co-starred with Marika Rökk. The film, partly set at the Sanremo Festival in Italy, was one of Rökk's most successful post-war films. Mart Sander at IMDb: “Very superfluous and light entertainment, where you can predict every word, gesture and action from the beginning to the happy end.” In the adventure film Jonny rettet Nebrador /Jonny Saves Nebrador (Rudolf Jugert, 1953), he appeared opposite Hans Albers and Margot Hielscher. The film is set in South America, but was shot on location in Italy. In 1957 he appeared as Dr. Busch in the DEFA-production Spielbank-Affäre/Casino affair (Arthur Pohl, 1957), next to Gertrud Kückelmann and Jan Hendriks.

During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Peter Pasetti focused more on stage and on TV. He played in countless TV series, including the popular mini-series Am grünen Strand der Spree (Fritz Umgelter, 1960). At IMDb, Ernst Wiltmann writes: “a haunting timetravel to a lost German way of live.“ Pasetti also appeared in Krimi series like Der Kommissar (1971-1974), Tatort (1977), Der Alte (1977-1991), and Derrick (1975-1992). He was the German voice of Skeletor in the Masters of the Universe Radio play (1984-1987) and also the German voice of Alfred Hitchcock in the The Three Investigators Radio play (1979-1995). Pasetti also worked as a voice actor and dubbed Humphrey Bogart in We’re no Angels (Michael Curtiz, 1955), Gary Cooper in High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952), Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947), and Joseph Cotten in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941). One of his later films is the drama Die Zeit der Schuldlosen/Time of the Innocent (Thomas Fantl, 1964), starring Erik Schumann. The film premiered at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival in the presence of President Lübcke and his wife, and many other German politicians. He also could be seen in the film Und Jimmy ging zum Regenbogen/And Jimmy went to the Rainbow (Alfred Vohrer, 1971), which was based on the novel The Caesar Code by Johannes Mario Simmel. It was filmed in Vienna and Munich. Pasetti also played Professor Gaspardi in the melodrama Das Chinesische Wunder/The Chinese Miracle (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1977). Jan Onderwater at IMDb: “Not only the subject of the badly written script is boring, Liebeneiner directs with disinterest - and who could blame him. The cast seems to be on heavy drugs, with the exception of Heinz Rühmann who has a fine performance during 30 minutes or so but cannot save the film; and what is his character doing in Hong Kong anyway?” Pasetti’s final feature film was Smaragd/Emerald (Veith von Fürstenberg, 1987). Peter Pasetti died in 1996 in Dießen am Ammersee, Germany.

Sources: Stepanie D’heil (German - Steffi-line), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Oil on canvas; 61 x 55.4 cm.

Eugene Berman Biography

(b St Petersburg, 4 Nov 1899; d Rome, 14 Dec 1972). Russian painter and stage designer. His family moved to Western Europe in 1908 and his basic training was in Germany, Switzerland and France (apart from a brief residence in St Petersburg in 1914–18, when he received lessons in art from the painter Pavel Naumov and the architect Sergey Gruzenberg). In 1919 he enrolled at the Académie Ranson in Paris, attending courses under Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis, and two years later he exhibited at the Galerie Druet, Paris. From the late 1930s Berman worked increasingly in the USA, creating designs for ballet and other musical productions, for example for the Music Festival in Hartford, CT, in 1936. In spite of his cosmopolitan background, Berman maintained close connections with Russian artists, critics and dancers, collaborating, for example, with Serge Lifar on the production of Icare in Monte Carlo in 1938.

Tower of London Poppies ~ Friday October 3rd 2014.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red ~ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ~ Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red is a 2014 work of installation art placed in the moat of the Tower of London, England, commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. The artist is Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper. The work's title is taken from the first line of a poem by an unknown World War I soldier, which begins: "The blood swept lands and seas of red, / Where angels dare to tread / ...

Form ~ The work consists of a sea of ceramic red poppies, being added progressively by volunteers. All the poppies have been individually hand-made in a ceramics factory in Derbyshire. It is intended that there will eventually be 888,246 of these, representing one estimate of the number of British and Colonial military fatalities in World War I. The sea of flowers is arranged to resemble a pool of blood which appears to be pouring out of a bastion window (the "Weeping Window"). The first poppy was planted on 17 July 2014, and the work was unveiled on 5 August (the centenary of Britain's entry into the war). It is planned to remain on display until 11 November 2014 (Armistice Day). Members of the public are invited to purchase the ceramic poppies, with a share of the proceeds going to service charities.

At around sunset each day between 1 September and 10 November, the names of one hundred World War I service personnel, nominated by members of the public to appear on a Roll of Honour, were read aloud by a Yeoman Warder, followed by the Last Post bugle call.

Official visits and public reactions ~ William and Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge on the day of its opening and by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh on 16 October.By 6 November four million people had seen the memorial, and the huge visitor demand saw Prime Minister David Cameron and other politicians join calls to try and extend the period which the installation remained at the Tower so that more visitors were able to pay their respects. Tower officials have resisted such calls, stating that the transience of the installation is a key part of the artistic concept,[11] and that the poppies would be removed as planned and distributed to their purchasers. On 8 November it was announced that the Wave segment – a steel construction with poppies around the Tower entrance – would remain in place until the end of the month, and that the Wave and the Weeping Window segments (both made by the Theatre Royal, Plymouth) would be taken on a tour of the UK lasting until 2018, and would then go on permanent display at the Imperial War Museums in London and Manchester.

Critical reaction ~ Although the installation has struck a chord with the public, it has received negative reactions from some press critics. A.A. Gill of The Sunday Times called it "impressive" but "curiously bland". The Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones described it as having a "false nobility" and being a "prettified and toothless" memorial. Tom Piper has responded that "... it is a remarkably good thing that it is so accessible. We should not be trying to create something that is difficult to understand.

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I'm stampolina and I love to take photos of stamps. Thanks for visiting this pages on flickr.

I'm neither a typical collector of stamps, nor a stamp dealer. I'm only a stamp photograph. I'm fascinated of the fine close-up structures which are hidden in this small stamp-pictures. Please don't ask of the worth of these stamps - the most ones have a worth of a few cents or still less.

By the way, I wanna say thank you to all flickr users who have sent me stamps! Great! Thank you! Someone sent me 3 or 5 stamps, another one sent me more than 20 stamps in a letter. It's everytime a great surprise for me and I'm everytime happy to get letters with stamps inside from you!

thx, stampolina

For the case you wanna send also stamps - it is possible. (...I'm pretty sure you'll see these stamps on this photostream on flickr :) thx!

stampolina68

Mühlenweg 3/2

3244 Ruprechtshofen

Austria - Europe

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stamp Austria 55c opera Turandot Oper Margarethen postage € 55cent € 0.55 Giacomo Puccini stamp austria timbre poste autriche selo sello Austria francobolli bollo Mapka Austria special issue stamp, commemorative issue, émission commémorative timbre stamp selo franco bollo postage porto sellos marka briefmarke Austria

following info 'bout this stamp-theme with friendly acceptance by austrian post:

Turandot

The Roman Quarry at St. Margarethen was, as the name suggests, in use as early as the Roman period. It was the quarry that supplied the materials for St. Steven´s cathedral and the buildings of the Ringstrasse in Vienna, as well as for the viaducts and support walls of the Semmering Railway. For the first time in 1926, and every five years since 1961, the quarry has been the venue for passion plays, attracting an audience of 72,000 in 2001. It was therefore a logical step to use the magnificent natural stage created by the quarrying of the rocks, with its 40 metre high steep walls, for an opera festival.Following Nabucco, Carmen and Otello, the programme for 2003 presents Puccini´s opera Turandot from July 24 to August 24. Stage designer Manfred Waba will use the enchanting atmosphere of the quarry in order to recreate ancient Peking before an audience of 100,000 opera fans. Guanfranco de Bosio, the former director of the Arena di Verona, is planning a monumental event with 400 performers and an international ensemble from 11 countries, using many commedia dell´arte effects, impressive acrobatic and ballet interludes, daredevil stunts and a wide range of stage effects.In a smaller quarry nearby, Humperdinck´s "Hansel and Gretel" will once again be performed for children.

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stamp Austria 55c opera Turandot Oper Margarethen postage € 55cent € 0.55 Giacomo Puccini stamp austria timbre poste autriche selo sello Austria francobolli bollo Mapka Austria special issue stamp, commemorative issue, émission commémorative

Watercolor, gouache, pencil on paper; 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.

Arthur Szyk was a graphic artist, book illustrator, stage designer and caricaturist. He was born into a Jewish family in Łódź, in the part of Poland which was under Russian rule in the 19th century. He always regarded himself both as a Pole and a Jew. From 1921, he lived and created his works mainly in France and Poland, and in 1937 he moved to the United Kingdom. In 1940 he settled permanently in the United States, where he was granted American citizenship in 1948.

Arthur Szyk became a renowned graphic artist and book illustrator as early as the interwar period – his works were exhibited and published not only in Poland, but also in France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the United States. However, he gained real popularity through his war caricatures, in which, after the outbreak of World War II, he depicted the leaders of the Axis powers – mainly Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito. After the war, he also devoted himself to political issues, this time supporting the creation of Israel.

Szyk's work is characterized in its material content by social and political commitment, and in its formal aspect by its rejection of modernism and drawing on the traditions of medieval and renaissance painting, especially illuminated manuscripts from those periods. Unlike most caricaturists, Szyk always showed great attention to the coloristic effects and details in his works.

Today, Szyk is a well-known and often exhibited artist only in his last home country – the United States. In Europe, since the late 1990s exhibitions of his art has been mounted in the Polish cities of Kraków, Warsaw, and Łódź as well as in Berlin, Germany. The recent publication of a Polish-language edition Szyk's biography and public broadcasts of the documentary film "Arthur Szyk - Illuminator" (Marta Tv & Film, Telewizja Polska (Łódź), 2005) also have improved Szyk's stature in his mother country, Poland.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJmRWQc6Yg

Black crayon, with graphite, on cream wove card, laid down on ivory laid paper; 25.4 x 19.9 cm.

Rosenberg Lev Samoylovich called Bakst was a painter and a stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Peterburg, attending the Academy of Arts. Bakst traveled regularly to Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists at the Academie Julian. With Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghlev he was a founder of the WORLD OF ART group in 1898. In 1906 he became a drawing teacher at the Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private school in St Peterburg.

Bakst realized his greatest artistic success in the theatre. In 1909 he collaborated with Diaghilev in the founding of Ballets Russes, where he acted as artistic director, and his stages designs rapidly brought him international fame. Between 1909 and 1921 his name became inseparable from the Ballets Russes. He also designed for other celebrities, included the artist producers Vera Komissarzhervskaya in 1906, Ida Rubinstein between 1911 to 1924. He settled in Paris in 1912, having being exiled from St Peterburg where, as a Jew he was unable to obtain a residence permit.

Bakst was arguably the most accomplish painter, as well as designer, in the World of Art group. His early preferences were for Realist painters and Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. The animated line and relaxed postures in his portraiture also suggest the influence of his close friend Valentin Serov. Through Benois and his circle Bakst was attracted to "retrospectivism" and Orientalism, and motifs from ancient Greece and Egypt became signatures in his easel paintings and theoretical work. The Benois circle also introduced him to Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

Rosenberg Lev Samoylovich called Bakst was a painter and a stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Peterburg, attending the Academy of Arts. Bakst traveled regularly to Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists at the Academie Julian. With Alexander Benois and Serge Diaghlev he was a founder of the WORLD OF ART group in 1898. In 1906 he became a drawing teacher at the Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private school in St Peterburg.

Bakst realized his greatest artistic success in the theatre. In 1909 he collaborated with Diaghilev in the founding of Ballets Russes, where he acted as artistic director, and his stages designs rapidly brought him international fame. Between 1909 and 1921 his name became inseparable from the Ballets Russes. He also designed for other celebrities, included the artist producers Vera Komissarzhervskaya in 1906, Ida Rubinstein between 1911 to 1924. He settled in Paris in 1912, having being exiled from St Peterburg where, as a Jew he was unable to obtain a residence permit.

Bakst was arguably the most accomplish painter, as well as designer, in the World of Art group. His early preferences were for Realist painters and Old Masters, such as Rembrandt and Velazquez. The animated line and relaxed postures in his portraiture also suggest the influence of his close friend Valentin Serov. Through Benois and his circle Bakst was attracted to "retrospectivism" and Orientalism, and motifs from ancient Greece and Egypt became signatures in his easel paintings and theoretical work. The Benois circle also introduced him to Symbolism and Art Nouveau.