With the exhibition “Designing Dreams, a Celebration of Leon Bakst” the Villa Sauber (NMNM) is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of this artist, whose name remains inextricably linked to the great adventure of the Ballets Russes.
Drawing on its own collections, the permanent loan from the SBM and many other loans, the New National Museum of Monaco is offering an exhibition centred on the great ballets for which Leon Bakst designed the costumes, such as Scheherazade, The Spectre of the Rose and The Afternoon of a Faun. At this exhibition, in addition to these costumes, the public will be able to see drawings, engravings, models and accessories, as well as Bakst’s passion for textile design, which is a unifying theme.
It was therefore quite natural for the NMNM to ask the artist Nick Mauss, with whom it has collaborated before, to create the setting for the exhibition. Nick Mauss has designed many creations inspired by Bakst’s fabric patterns, the most striking of which is the drapery for the interior staircase of the Villa Sauber, decorated entirely with stencils.
The exhibition closes with a few models from the 1991 SAINT LAURENT Rive Gauche spring/summer collection, which was largely inspired by Bakst’s costumes, proof that the Russian artist continues to have a strong influence over contemporary fashion designers.
Charly Gallo / Direction de la Communication
