Continuing the Erte Story

What happened at Harper’s Bazaar?

Hold your horses, before there was Harper’s Bazaar, there was Gazette du Bon Ton.

Erte might not have found fame with Harper’s Bazaar had he not been first featured by the relatively short-lived but seismicly important Gazette du Bon Ton. The Gazette was launched at about the same time that Erte arrived in Paris, and it ran until 1915. The Gazette was then relaunched in 1920 and ran until December 1925. I wish it would relaunch again for its 100th anniversary, I could really do with it now. As it is, there are 12 precious volumes published.

Does anyone have a copy? Does anyone know where these can be viewed? I must investigate, hang on while I put that on my to-do list…

An important link between Erte, Gazette du Bon Ton and Harper’s Bazaar is the use of the Pochoir technique which they eagerly embraced. Pochoir was the fashionable medium for showcasing fashionable clothing at the time.

Without diverting too much, the Pochoir technique was perfected in Paris in 1910. It utilised a mixture of stencilling and watercolour which gave a result perfect for creating and replicating fashion illustration and textile prints. Investigating Pochoir is also on my to-do list, so my future self will post a link here when it’s done.

Meanwhile, Erte at Harper’s Bazaar…

Very unusually for the time, indeed for any time, Erte was offered a ten-year contract to design covers (and to contribute to features inside) for Harper’s Bazaar. This contract was then extended for another 10 years. The owner, William Randolph Hearst, saw Erte as the magazine’s protoge, declaring, in a 1917 editorial, To glance at an Erte drawing is amusing. To look at one is interesting. To study one is absorbing. That any human being can conceive- and execute- such exquisite detail is positively miraculous.

I wonder what Erte’s family thought of this adoration of their errant child? Even though Erte had willingly become known by his initials, RT, in some way to protect his family from the scandal of his rejection of a naval career in favour of fashion, everyone knew the artist was none other than Romain de Tirtoff.

In fact, in 1922, Erte’s chosen career saved his family. He was able to use his high-falutin’ fashion connections to bring his family from Russia to the relative safety of Paris, after the revolution.

I also ask the same question that William Randolph Hearst asks, and to which there is no answer, What would Harper’s Bazaar have been if it wasn’t for Erte?

Erte’s exuberant style, of flamboyant women decked with feathers and ornaments contrasting with rigid and angular men framed by geometric architecture defines the Art Deco period. Erte was a prolific creator, a workaholic automaton, as all the legendary artists and designers seemingly are. He was driven by an unquenchable need to create.

Undeterred by two world wars and even the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Erte continued to produce his trademark work. Even the different art movements that he lived through (Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism etc) did not detract from his Art Deco style.

In my Substack notes, earlier this week, I asked the question: If Erte is known as the Father of Art Deco, who then is the Inventor of Art Deco? The answer came back: A.M. Cassandre. Which is interesting, because A.M. Cassandre was Erte’s replacement at Harper’s Bazaar after Erte’s falling out with new editor Carmel Snow, in 1936.

Did the Father and the Inventor of Art Deco get on with each other? Probably not!

Next week I’ll explore the world of Erte after Harper’s Bazaar, when he was released from his exclusive contract.

Here is a video I created in celebration of Erte, I hope he would have approved.