
Daria Khristova nee Chernenko
Department Director
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Department Director
Provenance
Estate of the artist
With Richard Nathanson, London
Purchased from the above by the present owner
Exhibition
London, The Alpine Club, W1, arranged by Richard Nathanson, Pavel Tchelitchew 1898-1957: A Collection of Fifty-four Theatre Designs c. 1919-1923, 13-22 December, 1976, no. 44
Literature
R. Nathanson, Pavel Tchelitchew 1898-1957: A Collection of Fifty-four Theatre Designs c. 1919-1923, The Alpine Club, London, 1976, exhibition catalogue, p.29, no. 44, illustrated
Tchelitchew's work in Berlin was enthusiastically received and widely influenced German stage designers during the mid-1920s. In 1923, he was commissioned by The Berlin State Opera to create sets and costumes for the Rimsky-Korsakov opera, Coq d'Or. Realistic stage designs and obvious settings never interested Tchelitchew, instead 'under his hand, the stage possessed no limitation to the visual exploitation of the theme, and [became] a universe in which any event could be given form.' (D. Windham, Dance Index, New York, 1944, p.4) The splendour of the designs for Coq d'Or fully attests to this.
Coq d'Or was a folktale adapted into a political satire, the fable of 'the Tzar who forgot his kingdom and caroused with the ladies of the court while a Golden Cockerel kept watch for him over his troubled country.'(D. Windham,1944, p.7) Hence, all shapes and forms were rounded, eliminating the sharp edges of the heavy cubes present in Savonarola: '[...] everything becomes stuffed, upholstered and cushioned, with balls bursting out of bosoms and buttocks.' (L. Kirstein, Tchelitchew, Santa Fe, 1994, p.31) The genius of Tchelitchew was such that his geometry was able to convey the whole spectrum of emotions, proving to the public that imagination knows no limits.