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Artist or Maker: BARON ADOLF DE MEYER (1868-1946)

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Notes: 'The Eighth Wonder of the World' -- Tamara Karsavina on Nijinsky1


This remarkable platinum exhibition print by Baron de Meyer encapsulates the magic of one of the most dazzling moments in the arts of the early twentieth century. It is a precious legacy of a remarkable confluence of talent in the fields of music, theatre set and costume design, dance and, of course, photography.

Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev brought to fruition in Paris for a few precious years before the First World War his vision of a new, energised ballet. His so-called Ballets Russes were revolutionary productions that electrified audiences and set a new standard in modern dance. Diaghilev achieved this through his brilliance in orchestrating the collaboration of the finest contemporary composers and choreographers with the most inspired visual artists. But the key to his success was his exploitation of the remarkable talent of his principal dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, here, as in his greatest roles, in a costume by Léon Bakst.

Surviving accounts give a sense of Nijinsky's extraordinary stagecraft -- the mesmerising presence that inspired one of his fellow dancers to describe him as 'the Eighth Wonder of the World'. Among his most memorable roles was his lead in Le Spectre de la Rose, evoked in later years by noted ballet historian Richard Buckle who explained that 'Nobody who saw Nijinsky as the rose ever got over it'.2 Buckle went on to explain that the magic of Nijinsky's interpretation had 'fortunately been perpetuated through the photographs of Baron de Meyer'.3 The photographer's evocative images of Nijinsky in this role are known through publications. Surviving prints, and particularly platinum exhibition prints such as the present example, are of the utmost rarity. The platinum process serves to enhance de Meyer's very particular sensitivity to ethereal effects of light. De Meyer was a master at using soft, glowing highlights, at creating halos through back-lighting in order to evoke an atmosphere, a bright aura that expressed rather than precisely defined his subjects. His vision of Nijinsky very effectively presents this force of nature as a seductive play of light and fluid gesture. Cecil Beaton, always a great admirer of de Meyer's distinctive and expressive approach, called him 'the Debussy of the camera'.

De Meyer was at the height of his talent, flourishing in the pursuit of a painterly style that sought to elevate the practice of photography to a high status alongside the arts in other, traditional media. He had come under the inspiring influence of Alfred Stieglitz and his Secessionist contemporaries, all the while developing skills that became the foundation for his very considerable success as the foremost magazine photographer of fashion and high style.

This image of Nijinsky was made in 1911, a pivotal moment in the visual arts in Paris. It was in April of that year that the great Secessionist Edward Steichen made his historic series of photographs of Poiret fashions for Art et Décoration. Conventional categorisations in the arts were being challenged. What really mattered were true inspiration and the pursuit of excellence -- de Meyer, Diaghilev, Bakst, and Nijinsky shared a moment of brilliance that is captured forever in the present print.

The presentation of this print -- set off by the slender margins of inter-mounts and tipped onto a tall mount bearing an elaborate stylised pencil signature -- is precisely characteristic of the few early exhibition prints by de Meyer that have survived. The print is framed with a slender black moulding and the backboard bears the framer's label of Chapman Bro[ther]s. This label corresponds with that on a print by de Meyer entitled 'Maria, A Study', that was included in the 'International Exhibition of Pictorialist Photography' at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, in 1910 (Sotheby's, New York, 17 April 2002, lot 58), corroborating the early print date.

1 Theatre Street, Columbus Books, 1930 (1988 ed.), p.150.

2 Diaghilev, New York, 1979, p.192.

3 Diaghilev, p.192.