From "The Father of Art Deco" ERTE! Dazzling "B"-shaped Pendant/Brooch, made of Gold-Plated Sterling Silver, with Hand-Set Swarovski Crystals! ** List Price: $395.00

ERTE BIOGRAPHY:

Date of birth : 1892-11-23
Date of death : 1990-04-21
Birthplace : St. Petersburg, Russia
Nationality : Russian
Category : Famous Figures
Last modified : 2011-04-15 14:20:50
Credited as : Fashion illustrator and designer, master of the Art Deco style,

 ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Romain de Tirtoff, known as Erté, was a Russian fashion illustrator and stage set designer, a master of the Art Deco style.

Romain de Tirtoff was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 23, 1892, of an aristocratic, musical family loyal to the tsar. His father descended from a Tartar Khan named Tirt and ranked as an admiral in the Imperial Naval School. The noble de Tirtoff family had always followed naval careers since Peter the Great. His mother was also an aristocrat of Cossack descent; one of her brothers, Nicholas, was military governor of St. Petersburg. Rimsky-Korsakov, the Russian composer, was one of the friends of the family.

Romain's idea of feminine beauty, throughout his long life, was the pale skin and dark eyes and hair of his mother. He was already designing clothes for her at the age of five, aided by the family's resident dressmaker. She took him on aristocratic summer tours abroad all over Europe while his father was on naval maneuvers.

Before World War I the Russian capital city was elegant and replete with activity—theater, music, the arts, and fashion. Three imperial theaters dominated, where young Romain could enjoy opera (he saw Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko at the age of seven in the family's permanent box in the Maryinsky Theater) and the Ballets Russes of the famed Diaghilev. His mother took him on shopping expeditions on fashionable Nevsky Prospekt where he was enthralled by the couturier's craft. He remembered in later years that in his early teens he hated uniformed school and could hardly wait until school was out to pick up his painting and designing again.

He arrived in Paris at the age of 19 (February 1912); France was to be his home thereafter. The French influence on St. Petersburg was profound, and Paris was bewitched by all things Russian in those days. In Paris Romain saw ballet-dancer Nijinsky's notorious L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune and Stravinsky's composition Sacre du Printemps in 1913; Picasso and Braque had begun Cubist art-forms; Orphism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism were about to be launched!

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