Jul 16, 2020 - Sale 2541
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Sale 2541 - Lot 159

Price Realized: $ 3,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
EDWARD GOREY.
Trio of set designs for Giselle, Act II. Three sheets showing details of various set design elements from the 1977 musical ballet performed by Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, staged by Yelena Tchernychova after Perrot and Petipa, additional choreography by Peter Anastos. Pen, ink, watercolor, and wash on paper. Various sizes (see below). Captions and measurements in Gorey's hand in margins. All hinged to mattes with tape on top edge verso. A copy of the Playbill accompanies the artwork.

The largest piece, titled "Legs (from audience)" is comprised of two 382x154 mm;15x6-inch panels * Slanted grave panels marked "Giselle" with floral elements measures 193x185 mm; 7 1/2x7 1/4 inches * The smallest, captioned "Horizontal piece (cover vertical)," measures 195x147 mm 7 3/4x5 3/4 inches.

Gorey, a lifelong lover of dance, famously never missed a Lincoln Center performance of the New York City Ballet. During an intermission of a performance in 1976, he was approached by Peter Onastis, fellow NYCB regular and founder of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo ("The Trocks"), the all-male dance company known for its zany ballerina impersonations, who asked him to design Act II for their performance of the ballet. "I had my notebook. I did a rough sketch. The next time I saw him I had a finished draft. I said `Is this OK?' and he said `Yes.' That's the way I like to work. I don't work well in collaborations."--Howard Kissel, interview with Gorey in the Arts & People feature, Women's Wear Daily, April 12,1977.Prior to Giselle, Gorey had created ballet designs for the second act of "Swan Lake" for Andre Iglevsky's company and two drop curtains for Jerome Robbins' "Concerts for the Royal Ballet."
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