PIERRE BONNARD (1867-1947) OPERA / BALLETS RUSSES / LEGENDE DE JOSEPH. 1914. 62 3/4x46 3/4 inches. Succes, Paris. Condition B: repaired tears, restoration and restored losses in margins; repaired tears and restoration in image; vertical and horizontal folds. This is the largest, rarest and also one of the last posters that Pierre Bonnard designed. The only other known copy is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. From its inception in 1909 until Diaghilev's death in 1929, the Ballets Russes was a revolutionary force in the arts. By combining the work of the most talented artists in three different fields, music, stage design and dance, Diaghilev consistently broke new ground in his modernist interpretation of ballet. With virtually infallible taste, Diaghilev worked with French and Russian avant-garde composers (Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Eric Satie, Claude Debussy, Poulenc and Ravel to name a few), cubist stage designs (Picasso, Fernand Leger and Leon Bakst), and the best dancers and choreographers (Fokine, Massine, Nijinski, Lifar, etc.) to produce his shows. La Legende de Joseph, by Richard Strauss, was the only work by a German composer that Diaghilev used. The show had stage designs and costumes by Leon Bakst, was choreographed by Michel Fokine and starred Leonide Massine as the primary dancer. It was originally performed at the Paris Opera less than two months before the outbreak of the First World War. Although Bonnard had worked on stage designs with Diaghilev before, he was no longer designing posters. His most recent commission had been in 1912, when he designed an image for the Salon d'Automne, which, with its active stroke-work, was already dramatically different from his work at the turn of the century. For the Legende de Joseph Bonnard goes even further. Just as he had done twenty-three years previously with his poster for France Champagne, Bonnard created a new revolution on the hoardings of Paris. Felix Feneon, an art critic who witnessed both posters wrote "The walls of Paris would have been looking decidedly grimmer than in the days when the images of Cheret and Lautrec blossomed profusely against them, but now a poster by Bonnard proclaims in yellow, red and black . . . La Legende de Joseph . . . and shows the dancer Leonide Massine in all his youthful agility." (The Bulletin No. 7 issued by the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, May 14, 1914.) Bonnard, who never followed in the paths of the cubists, has his own independent and personal style, which is evident here in the total freedom of the drawing. It is a brilliant rough sketch with a unique sense of composition. While we have read that it was posted on the streets of Paris, perhaps because of the war, it is one of the rarest of French posters. As an indication of its rarity, the Bibliotheque Nationale couldn't even procure a copy. Somebody had to donate it to them. This is only the second known copy to exist. It originally came from the estate of Serge Lifar, who lent it to the Diaghilev exhibition in 1939. It has had two or three owners since then. Bonnard 83.
