{ feuilleton }

George Barbier’s work has been a regular visitor to these pages. Falbalas et Fanfreluches was a series of pochoir print portfolios published from 1922–1926, a catalogue of various liaisons and amours with a mildly erotic tone. There’s also some sly humour in the examples below, such as the tiny dogs menacing a dandy in L’Agression, [...]

Vaslav Nijinsky in Fokine’s Schéhérazade. A print by George Barbier (1913). Happy new year. 02013? Read this. “Taking your measure”: October, 1913. “The elevated sidewalk: How it will solve transportation problems”: July 26, 1913. November 15, 1913.

Another small and obscure volume hiding in the Internet Archive, Vaslav Nijinsky is a portfolio of six ink drawings by Paul Iribe (1883–1935) with a few lines of appended verse by Jean Cocteau. Iribe was a French designer and fashion illustrator who for a while was a member of the Ballets Russes circle, hence these [...]

Mathieu by Jean-Philippe Guillemain. A collection of male dancers pose beside the usual complement of agency models in the portfolio of French photographer Jean-Philippe Guillemain. Are all European dancers this attractive or does he just have a good eye? See the others on his site. Previously on { feuilleton } • Danseur Noble • The [...]

Cover by Evgeny Lanceray for Prospectus of the Magazine, 1901. Previous posts here have concerned fin de siècle art magazines like The Savoy, Pan and Jugend; yesterday we had Sergei Diaghilev so it seems fitting to mention Diaghilev’s own magazine, Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), founded in 1899 with similar intentions to the European magazines [...]

Ida Rubinstein as Zobeide and Vaslav Nijinsky as the Golden Slave in Schéhérazade (1913) by Georges Barbier. Another great exhibition at the V&A, London, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes gathers a wealth of costumes, stage designs, photographs and ephemera—including some of Stravinsky’s manuscripts—to present a history of the legendary ballet company and their visionary impresario. [...]

Another chance find at the Internet Archive. This small book from 1913 is an appraisal of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes written by noted actress Ellen Terry and with illustrations—which Archive.org doesn’t mention—by Pamela Colman Smith, an artist whose Tarot designs are some of the most successful ever created yet who received little credit for her work [...]

The Adam Kozik Studio was in touch earlier this week with news of Danseur Noble, a photo-series of male dancers posed indoors and out. See the rest of the series here. Previously on { feuilleton } • The tights have it • Torero • Eonism and Eonnagata • Tiger Lily • Chris Nash • Peter [...]

In which the marvellous Hedi Slimane captures dancer Oscar Nilsson resting during a performance involving a percussive score tapped out by someone wearing a bear’s head. (Video here and here.) There’s probably a joke to be made there about bears and twinks but you won’t find me attempting it. The picture below is from a [...]

One of a series of stunning ads by Y&R of Chicago for the River North Chicago Dance Company which give the old “body as machine” a contemporary and rather erotic twist. (I would have credited the photographer but the ad agency site is the usual Flash interface which refuses to work in any of my [...]

Les Chansons de Bilitis (1922). I’ve posted examples of George Barbier’s Art Deco drawings before but online examples of his work outside the world of fashion illustration have been difficult to find. The Bunka Women’s University Library corrects that with a collection of high-quality scans which include a book about the artist, George Barbier, Étude [...]

The Juggler Sun (1895). On the shortest day of the year it seems fitting to post a picture of the sun and hope that in 2009 the clouds clear long enough for us Brits to see more than a month of it. Claude Fayette Bragdon’s poster is a remarkably stylised work for 1895 and might [...]

The Peacock (no date). Dancer Ruth St Denis (1879–1968) strikes Art Nouveau poses in the New York Public Library’s Denishawn Collection, now at Flickr. Radha (1904). Previously on { feuilleton } • Peacocks • Rene Beauclair • Elizabetes Iela 10b, Riga • The Maison Lavirotte • Whistler’s Peacock Room • Beardsley’s Salomé • The art [...]

Jacob, a dancer with the Canadian National Ballet, photographed by Toxicboy. Previously on { feuilleton } • Chris Nash • Peter Reed and Salomé After Dark • Felix D’Eon • Dancers by John Andresen • Youssef Nabil • Images of Nijinsky • The art of Hubert Stowitts, 1892–1953

Previous posts about gay or homoerotic art or artists. A personal and idiosyncratic selection, this isn’t meant to be definitive. • The art of Naomichi Okutsu • The art of Konstantin Somov, 1869–1939 • The art of Seiji Inagaki • Claudio Bravo’s packages • Gekko Hayashi revisited • The art of George Stavrinos, 1948–1990 • [...]

Dancer Javier de Frutos (1998). Dance photography by Chris Nash. Bread—Bedlam Dance Company. Previously on { feuilleton } • Peter Reed and Salomé After Dark • Felix D’Eon • Dancers by John Andresen • Youssef Nabil • Images of Nijinsky • The art of Hubert Stowitts, 1892–1953

Peter Reed from a 1977 photo shoot for After Dark magazine. The Flickr page this is from also has photos of the dancer by Robert Mapplethorpe (no longer…see below), while the After Dark pools have a wealth of scanned material ranging from the sexy to the iniquitous, with hair and fashion crimes aplenty. David Meyer [...]

Previous posts about illustrators. • The art of Ted Coconis • Dream Boats and Other Stories by Dugald Stewart Walker • Joseph Southall’s Bluebeard • Ezio Anichini postcards • Julius Klinger’s Sodom • René Bull’s Rubáiyát • Rackham silhouettes • Pamela Colman Smith’s Annancy Stories • The art of Henri Caruchet • George Barbier’s Falbalas [...]

Nijinski I (2006). More photographs and montages by Hernan Gimenez at his ArtsCad pages. Via Fabulon. Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The gay artists archive Previously on { feuilleton } • The art of Andrey Avinoff, 1884–1949 • The Decorative Age • Images of Nijinsky

Dancer by Felix D’Eon at his Flickr pages. His artwork based on the photos, including some gay erotica, can be seen at his website. Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The gay artists archive Previously on { feuilleton } • Dancers by John Andresen • Youssef Nabil • Images of Nijinsky • The art of [...]