BURIED TOGETHER
Partner Boris Kochno
Queer Places:
Cimetière du Père Lachaise
Paris, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France
Christian Bérard (20 August 1902, Paris – 11 February 1949), also known as
Bébé, was a French artist, fashion illustrator and designer. The work of
Broadway's gay and lesbian artistic community went on display in 2007 when the
Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation Gallery presents "StageStruck: The Magic of
Theatre Design." The exhibit was conceived to highlight the achievements of
gay and lesbian designers who work in conjunction with fellow gay and lesbian
playwrights, directors, choreographers and composers. Original sketches,
props, set pieces and models — some from private collections — represent the
work of over 60 designers, including Christian Bérard.
Bérard and his lover Boris Kochno, who worked for the Ballets Russes and was also co-founder of
the Ballets des Champs-Elysées, were one of the most prominent openly
homosexual couples in French theater during the 1930s and 1940s.[1]
BBorn in Paris in 1902, Bérard studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly as a
child. In 1920, he entered the Academie Ranson, where his style was influenced
by Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis.
Bérard showed his first exhibition in 1925, at the Gallery Pierre. From the
start of his career he had an interest in theatrical scenery and costume
designs, and played an important role in the development of theatrical design
in the 1930s and 1940s. In the early 1930s Bérard worked with
Jean-Michel Frank,
painting screens, wood-work and drawing projects for carpets. He also worked
as a fashion illustrator for
Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Nina Ricci. Bérard's most renowned
achievement was probably his lustrous, magical designs for
Jean Cocteau's film
La Belle et la Bête (1946).
During the post-WWII period, the French theatre was
dominated by Jean Cocteau's circle, including the stage designer
Christian
Bérard and the actor Jean Marais; the bisexual
Gérard Philipe was everyone's favorite leading man. The foremost members
of the Comedic Francaise, such as Jean Weber and
Jacques Charon,
were familiar faces at gay salons. Julien Green's monumental Sud
(South, 1953)
clothed his doomed love story in Civil War garb and veiled suggestion; the
agony of unrequited affection went even deeper in
Henry de Montherlant's La
Ville dont le Prince en un Enfant (The City Whose Prince Is a Child, 1951), set
in a Catholic school where an obsessive priest roots out the special
friendships of the students. Typically, the secretive and suicidal Montherlant
considered it unsuitable for public performance by boys.
Bérard died suddenly from a heart attack on 11 February 1949, on the stage
of the Théâtre Marigny.
Francis Poulenc's
Stabat Mater (1950) was composed in his memory, and Jean Cocteau
dedicated his film Orphée (1950) to him.
Paul Rodocanachi (seated in the center) with (from left to right) Alberto Giacometti, Jean-Michel Frank, Emilio Terry, Christian Bérard, Adolphe Chanaux e Diego Giacometti
, by François Kollar
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_B%C3%A9rard
- Woods, Gregory. Homintern . Yale University Press. Edizione del
Kindle.
- Hidden Histories, 20th Century Male Same Sex Lovers in the Visual
Arts, by Michael Petry
-
https://www.playbill.com/article/stagestruck-exhibit-featuring-gay-and-lesbian-broadway-design-talent-begins-nov-14-com-145399