Sergei Vasilievich Chekhonin

After emigrating to Paris in 1928, Chekhonin continued working for the theatre more than ever before, producing bold, sharp and immediately recognisable costume and poster designs for Nikita Baliev’s La Chauve-Souris cabaret-theatre and, as shown by the present lot, for the newly founded Ballets Russes de Vera Nemtchinova at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Chekhonin and Nemchinova further collaborated on the ballet Humoresque, choreographed by Boris Romanov to music by Tchaikovsky, Mily Balakirev’s Islamey, in which Nemchinova, a former prima ballerina, danced herself, as well as Alexander Glazunov’s Snegurochka, all staged at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.

For Baliev, Chekhonin worked, amongst others, on the production of Mikhail Glinka’s opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, where he was in charge of the stage and costume designs. Commenting on the originality of his theatre designs, Lyudmila Andreeva writes: 'His theatre costumes were like a patchwork of gussets of Suprematist canvases, randomly cut out. A new, decorative form was constructed from triangular, square and sometimes oval-shaped forms' (L.Andreeva, ‘O poslednikh godakh tvorchestva S.Chekhonina’, Sovetskoe dekorativnoe iskusstvo-76, 1978, p.230).