Eugene Berman was a painter as well as a set and costume designer. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, his family fled to Paris during the Russian Revolution, and he studied art in France, Germany and Switzerland. He was aligned with the French Neo-Romantic movement, which included Pavel Tchletichew, painting figures among imaginary landscapes and architectural environments. Although the environments he created in his paintings were surreal, they were based on careful study of Renaissance and Baroque architecture.<\/p>\n
Berman’s first United States exhibition took place at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York in 1929, and he continued to show there until 1947. In 1935, he emigrated to the U.S., settling first in New York and later in Los Angeles, eventually becoming an American citizen. From 1937 to 1955, he designed sets and costumes for ballet and opera companies including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, American Ballet Caravan, and, most notably, the Metropolitan Opera. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships in the late 1940s, which he used to travel to Mexico and the American Southwest. Berman exhibited widely in American and European museums during the 1950s and ’60s, and retired to Rome in 1957, where he died in 1972. His works are in dozens of art museum collections, including the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum and the Wadsworth Atheneum.<\/p>\n
Inscriptions:<\/p>\n
Signed in matrix in image lower left:: “E.B. 1939”
\nMargin lower left: “A Triton Publication, 1953″
\nMargin lower left: \u201cCourtesy of Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut”
\nMargin lower right: \u00a0“Printed in the U.S.A. by Triton Press, Inc.”
\nMargin upper left: “Catalda Fine Arts, Exclusive Distributor”<\/p>\n
Condition: Generally very good, recently professionally cleaned and deacidified with light remaining toning, wear, handling. Very faint dampstain lower right corner. Some scattered pale discoloration in white margins. Some scattered fading or loss to typeface of printed credits in lower margin.<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
\u201cCurtain Design for “Le Diable s’amuse” (Devil’s Holiday).\u201d Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/em> https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/404458 (24 February 2025).<\/p>\n “Eugene G. Berman.” Askart.com<\/em>. 2000-2011. http:\/\/www.askart.com\/AskART\/artists\/biography.aspx?artist=20739 (18 March 2011).<\/p>\n Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press, 1985. p. 50.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eugene G. Berman (1899-1972) A costume design for the character of a Mexican hat seller by the renowned costume and set designer Eugene Berman. The hat seller is shown from the back facing away, wearing a mustard jacket and knee breeches, and carrying many hats of various bright colors stacked on his head and in his hands. Berman designed the costume for Devil\u2019s Holiday (Le Diable s\u2019Amuse)<\/strong>, a ballet about a woman who marries a man for his money but eventually falls in love with him. In the upper left of the print, the artist indicates the costume is of \u201cVendeur de Chapeaux\u201d as appearing in the \u201cPrologue.\u201d The ballet premiered on October 26, 1939 Metropolitan Opera in New York City, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. All sets and costumes were designed by Berman with choreography by Frederick Ashton and music by Vincenzo Tommasini based on themes by Niccol\u00f2 Paganini. This print was published in 1953 after the original 1939 watercolor, courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford Connecticut, from their collection. The record auction price for this print is $3,500 including buyers premium at Bonhams, New York, from the collection of Hamish Bowles, the Vogue International Editor, and his partner Gordon Watson.<\/p>\n Product description continues below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":42795,"template":"","meta":{"wds_primary_product_brand":0,"wds_primary_product_cat":0,"footnotes":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[949,947],"product_tag":[9938,1054,3418,2128,2125,9926,9185,9927,613,1673,9937],"class_list":{"0":"post-42794","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-fashion","7":"product_cat-music-performing-arts","8":"product_tag-9938","9":"product_tag-art","10":"product_tag-ballet","11":"product_tag-berman","12":"product_tag-costume","13":"product_tag-devils-vacation","14":"product_tag-eugene-berman","15":"product_tag-hat-seller","16":"product_tag-mexico","17":"product_tag-print","18":"product_tag-vendeur-de-chapeaux","19":"post","20":"post-with-thumbnail","21":"post-with-thumbnail-large","23":"first","24":"instock","25":"purchasable","26":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/42794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/42794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44842,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/42794\/revisions\/44842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=42794"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=42794"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=42794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nVendeur de Chapeaux <\/strong>
\nfor Devil\u2019s Holiday (Le Diable s\u2019Amuse)<\/em><\/strong>
\nTriton Publication, New York: 1953
\nCatalda Fine Arts, Exclusive Distributor
\nPhoto-process print
\nSigned and dated in the matrix: E.B. 1939
\n24.75 x 19.5 inches, image size
\n28.25 x 22.5 inches, overall
\n$1,450<\/p>\n