Romain de Tirtoff ERTÉ

As has been noted by one scholar of Erté, ‘In theatrical design much of his work during this period [the 1930s] was for the music hall, an arena that was then expriencing a brief, post-Depression resurgence, and one that offered its patrons balletic productions in lieu of former extravaganzas, which were underwritten by enormous budgets…With the onset of World War II and the German occupation of Paris, work for the foreign stage vanished completely…When the war ended and Paris was liberated, Erté was contracted to create the sets and costumes for a forthcoming production of Donizetti’s opera, Don Pasquale (1945). Throughout the late 1940s and into the 1950s, Erté devised the designs for a number of shows at the reopened Moulin Rouge, Narcissus and the Folies-Pigalle and leading revues in London, New York and Montreal.’

The present sheet is a design for the stage curtain for the production of the revue George White’s Scandals at the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939 in San Francisco. The Austrian-born American theatrical impresario George White (1892-1968), a former dancer himself, staged his first show in 1921 and eventually mounted thirteen lavish musical productions, known as George White’s Scandals, with music by George Gershwin and starring such performers as Dolores Costello, W. C. Fields, Alice Faye, Ethel Merman, Ann Miller and Rudy Vallee. White employed Erté to design the costumes for several of his productions, having first seen his work in a production of Les Mers at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs in Paris in 1922. As Charles Spencer has noted, ‘The distinguishing feature of Erté’s work for George White…is not to be found in the repetition of oriental themes and spectacular ensembles, which either in fact or by inspiration originated from Paris…What are distinctive are the modern, jazzy numbers, more in tradition of the American musical stage.’

As Erté noted in his autobiography, ‘The last time White and I worked together was in 1939 when he staged a show for the Universal Exhibition in San Francisco.’ As an early review of the show, which was then in previews in Boston, noted, ‘The ‘39 “Scandals”…is a compound of hard and fast dancing, low and broad comedy, soft and sweet melodies, all presented against a background of pretty girls and settings that are occasionally dazzling, but rarely overwhelming.’ The show opened in San Francisco a week later, on 28 August 1939. This production was to be, however, the last of the George White’s Scandals revues, as by this time White was close to bankruptcy.