'Brodovitch: From Diaghilev to Harper’s Bazaar'
Harper’s Bazaar presents the exhibition “Brodovitch: From Diaghilev to Harper’s Bazaar.” The exhibit is timed to coincide with the magazine’s 15th anniversary and will run from Oct. 26 through Nov. 25 at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture at 19A Ulitsa Obraztsova.
Alexei Brodovitch is a pioneer of graphic design who created the prototype of the modern glossy fashion magazine. Brodovitch revolutionized the periodicals industry by combining images and text on the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. Brodovitch became one of the founders of fashion and advertising photography and taught such photographic greats as Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
A native of Russia and among the first wave of emigrants, Brodovitch began his creative career as a designer in Paris working for Sergei Diaghilev. Brodovitch not only helped create posters and decorations for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet, but also photographed the dancers backstage during rehearsals and fittings.
In 1934, Brodovitch accepted an invitation to become the art director for Harper’s Bazaar magazine in New York. He remained at that post for almost a quarter of a century — until 1958. In the United States, he brought the completely new European minimalist style that had emerged under the influence of the avant-garde movement in art and the industrial art decor design style. Among the friends whom Brodovitch invited to contribute to Harper’s Bazaar were Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Joan Miro, Jean Cocteau, poster art and type design master Adolphe Cassandre and the photographer Man Ray. In addition, Brodovitch created a network of Design Laboratories — real schools that trained many American designers and photographers.
"Brodovitch: From Diaghilev to Harper’s Bazaar" at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture is the first Brodovitch exhibition in Russia. Surprisingly, a full exhibition of the work of this pioneering graphic designer has never before been held in his native country.
The exhibition, largely a repetition of the 1982 "Homage to Alexey Brodovitch" exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris, features cover art and examples of graphic experiments that Brodovitch conducted on the pages of Harper’s Bazaar magazine; his Ballet series of photographs made during the New York tour of the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo and at performances by U.S. ballet troupes in the mid-1930s; photographic portraits of Brodovitch by Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Arnold Newman as well as personal letters, photographs and video recordings of lectures and exemplifying his teaching career. Exhibition visitors can also view the visual aesthetic history of Harper’s Bazaar magazine from its founding until the present. Materials from the Richard Avedon Foundation and the Alexei Brodovitch archives of the U.S. Rochester Institute of Technology were also used in developing this exhibition.
Irina Meglinskaya — gallery director, photography expert and director of the photography service of the Afisha Publishing House — serves as the curator of the exhibition. Her co-curator is Roger Remington, a Rochester Institute of Technology professor, expert in the history, theory and methodology of design, teacher, author of books on the history of design and the past curator of the "Homage to Alexey Brodovitch" exhibit in Paris.
Fendi perfumes, Dior phone, Visa, Baileys and Prime acted as partners to the exhibition. More details about the exhibition are available on Facebook at .
