Nouveau Musée National de Monaco | Designing Dreams: A Celebration of Leon Bakst

BOOK RELEASE:
DESIGNING DREAMS
A CELEBRATION OF LEON BAKST

Designing Dreams, A Celebration of Léon Bakst
2017, Mousse Publishing, 45 €
208 pages, French / English
Flexicover, 24 x 33 cm
ISBN 9-788867-492770

Edited by Célia Bernasconi, John E. Bowlt, Nick Mauss

Preface by HRH The Princess of Hanover, President of the NMNM Board and Acquisition Committee

Foreword by Marie-Claude Beaud, Director of the NMNM

Texts by Leon Bakst, John E. Bowlt, Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen, Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, Firuza Melville, Nicoletta Misler, Elena Terkel

Published to accompany the exhibition Designing Dreams, A Celebration of Léon Bakst at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, this volume, which gathers scientific contributions from leading researchers and art historians alongside in situ installation views, pays tribute to Léon Bakst, the greatest set designer of the modern era.

Viewing theater as a total artwork in which choreography, music, costumes and sets were of equal importance, Léon Bakst worked closely with artists such as Serge Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Jean Cocteau, Ida Rubinstein and Igor Stravinsky, transforming the perception of ballet. Designing Dreams, A Celebration of Léon Bakst highlights Bakst’s finest achievements in stage design, while also revealing his decisive influence in the field of textile design.

Conceived especially by Nick Mauss in parallel to the exhibition design, this catalogue offers a detailed presentation of Bakst's drawings, costume and textile designs, previously unpublished writings on ornament and fashion, new scholarship on Bakst’s sources and the impact of his vision, as well as in situ views of the scenography created by Nick Mauss for the exhibition.

Available in five different colors, cloth covers stenciled by Nick Mauss.

Nouveau Musée National de Monaco