Working for Diaghilev Book

Publisher, impresario, and patron Sergei Diaghilev was one of the greatest artistic innovators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the first to attract visual artists to work with composers and choreographers in order to create theatrical works of art for a broad public, and the world-renowned ballets that he produced in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century left a permanent stamp on the world of dance. In Western Europe, Diaghilev is primarily known as the source of inspiration and impresario of the dance company Les Ballets Russes, which completely innovated the dance world from 1910 to 1920 and re-established the eminent position of ballet among the arts. But Diaghilev also had a profound influence on the other visual arts: He collaborated with famous painters like Matisse, Picasso, Di Chirico, and Cocteau; with choreographers such as Fokine, Massine, and Balanchine; and with composers such as Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel, and Debussy. This catalogue to the exhibition at the Groninger Museum presents Diaghilev's artistic legacy in an unprecedented scale--paintings, drawings, costumes, and decors from more than 15 museological and private collections in Russia, France, the United Kingdom, the United States., and Spain are brought together here for the first time. Presented here are works by highly-gifted Russian artists such as Michail Vrubel, Valentin Serov, Alexander Golovin, Lev Bakst, Natalya Goncharova, and Mikhail Larionov--all of which help to illustrate the strong influence of Diaghilev, and Russian culture as a whole, on the development of the Western European avant-garde.