Winter fashion. Cover Design for "Harpers Bazaar"

From 1915 to 1935, Erte managed to make 240 covers for the very first female, iconic American magazine Harper's Bazaar. And any of them now, a hundred years later, could decorate some fashionable gloss and pass for a cool, cleverly stylized, designer print. Or, for example, be placed on the poster of a fashionable retro-cruise, Tweed Run or other similar event with nostalgia for 20-30 years of the last century. Or on the playbill of the old play in the new reading, or in the trailer for The Great Gatsby. Erte is again perfectly fine.
Global world shocks and terrible catastrophes have not happened since the mid-40s, long enough for the pretentious, luxurious, shameless, artsy art deco to become fashionable and no longer considered an impermissible mockery.
In the 20s - 30s of the 20th century, Art Deco is a way of life. Lighters, furniture, dresses, cars, radio sets, buildings, chandeliers and dishes in the art deco style are much more than paintings or graphics. But Art Deco artists do not change art and life, as their colleges of contemporaries from the Bauhaus or Art Nouveau artists. They aspire exclusively to the external beauty, guided by their own taste, do not invent theories, are not fond of the symbolism of the image.
At the same time Erte's journal works are such a strict, decorative, but discreet art deco. Gouaches written for Harper's Bazaar (1, 23) or Cosmopolitan, always graphic and concise, geometrically rhythmic. There is no that deliberate visibility, which is easily read in the thematic series of Erte: "Zodiac signs", "Seven Deadly Sins", "Gems". There is noexotic scenery and tiring exquisite costumes, referring to Greece, India, Japan, Egypt. Works for Harper's Bazaar were ultramodern, and therefore they managed to preserve the versatility and cosmopolitan, to be out of fashion. And yet - to become exhibits of one of the largest museums of modern art.
This story of sudden glory — very much in the spirit of Erte’s whole life. He was lucky with acquaintances, employers, colleagues who felt and recognized his special delicate taste, his innate sense of the fine line between decorative richness and vulgarity. Erte was already more than 70 years old when he met an art dealer from London, Eric Estoric. At this time, Erte works mainly with theaters and cabarets, draws scenography and costumes. As an artist, few remember it. Estoric was fascinated by the art of the beginning of the 20th century - and Erte's graphics made a powerful impression on him. So much so that he undertook to organize Erte, forgotten in the New York gallery Grosvenor Gallery. Everybody talked about Erte: gallery owners, art historians, film stars who, in nostalgia for the era of the first silent film and its interiors, wanted to rebuild their villas and decorate them in an Art Deco style. But most importantly - the Metropolitan Museum after the exhibition, organized by Estoric, bought the entire exhibition. 170 works Erte moved to the Museum of Modern Art. These were sketches of dresses for the Davidow brand and shoes for the American brand Delman, covers of magazines and set design, sketches of jewelry and theater curtains.
Never before has the Metropolitan bought the entire exhibition at outside exhibitions. And never before did he arrange personal exhibitions of a still-living artist — this was contrary to the laws of the museum. All graphics and gouaches Erte will soon appear at the exhibition in the Metropolitan itself - a personal exhibition will be disguised as “Erte and his contemporaries”.
Most of the illustrations created by Erte for Harper's Bazaar magazine are now in the New York Museum.