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George Barbier French illustrators of the early 20th century

George Barbier (1882 - 1932) portrait by Charles Martin

Born in Nantes, France on October 10, 1882, Barbier was 29 years old when he mounted his first exhibition in 1911 and was subsequently swept to the forefront of his profession with commissions to design theatre and ballet costumes, to illustrate books, and to produce haute couture fashion illustrations.

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George Barbier studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and began his career as a costume and set designer for the Ballets Russes. Barbier is considered one of the very finest illustrators in the Art Deco genre, although much of his work is done in a Greek classic style influenced by his love of antiquities.Barbier was passionate about dance and illustrated many books on the subject. Renowned for his work in costume and fashion illustration, Barbier also explored poster art, textile and wallpaper design, packaging and postcards.His books, particularly those done in collaboration with Francois-Louis Schmied are masterpieces in Art Deco book illustration. These titles include "Les Chansons de Bilitis," 1922; "Personnages de Comedie,"1922; "Poemes en Prose," 1928; and "Vies Imaginaires," 1929.

Yet when he died in 1932, at the age of 50, his name rapidly sank into obscurity. "George Barbier: The Birth of Art Deco" at the Fortuny Museum in Venice, is the first posthumous exhibition of his work. It show more than 200 paintings, fashion plates, drawings, dresses, books, articles, manuscripts, photographs and other piecesContributing to his disappearance were his own reticence and a surprising sparseness of biographical information. Born into a prosperous bourgeois family in the provincial town of Nantes, he lived a clearly very different lifestyle in Paris, where he frequented unmistakably, if not exclusively, homosexual circles - he was, for example, an intimate of the dandy and poet Robert de Montesquiou, who introduced him to Marcel Proust.His burial in his home town was conducted with a discretion bordering on the furtive, and none of his descendants seem to have tried to keep his memory alive.

In the France that emerged from World War I, George Barbier, then in his 30s, was one of the best-known artist-designers, especially famous as a creator of the brilliantly colored fashion plates that had been launched by the couturier Paul Poiret a decade earlier, and of jewelry for Cartier.

Pocahontas meeting John Smith

Pictures: InternetCopyright: All the images belong to their authors

Arangement: Sanda Foişoreanu

www.slideshare.net/michaelasanda

Sound: Cecilia Bartoli:

Léo Delibes - Les Filles de Cadix, bolero for voice & piano Georges Bizet - Chant d'amour, song for voice & piano