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Early
in a career that began in 1912 when he was 19
years old, Romain de Tirtoff, the Russian-born
artist who called himself Erte after the French
pronunciation of his initials, was regarded
as a "miraculous magician," whose
spectacular fashions transformed the ordinary
into the outstanding, whose period costumes
made the present vanish mystically into the
past, and whose decors converted bare stages
into sparkling wonderlands of fun and fancy.
When his career ended with his death in 1990,
Erte was considered as "one of the twentieth-century's
single most important influences on fashion",
"a mirror of fashion for 75 years"
and the unchallenged "prince of the music
hall," who had been accorded the most significant
international honors in the field of design
and whose work was represented in major museums
and private collections throughout the world.
This luxuriously illustrated hardcover book
contains a rich representative selection of
images, drawn throughout Erte's long and extraordinarily
productive career. A detailed introduction to
the artist's life and work is complemented by
over 100 exquisite full colour plates, which
pay tribute to a "miraculous magician" and the
classics of Art Deco design.
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