Vronska et Alperoff poster – Jean-Gabriel Domergue – 1923

Vronska et Alperoff poster – Jean-Gabriel Domergue – 1923 The two stars of this magnificent vintage ballet poster are Alicia Vronska also known as Alice Vronskaya and Konstantin Alperoff. The pair were principal dancers with the legendary Russian dance company, Ballets Russes. The world-famous Ballets Russe company was founded on May 19, 1909, by Sergei Diaghilev, a Russian art critic, patron, and ballet impresario. Diaghilev was responsible for revolutionising ballet. Shows by the Ballets Russe had a huge influence on art, fashion, theatre, and interior design in the early twentieth century. His company included many of the best dancers in the world including legendary artists such as Vaslav Nijinski, Anna Pavlova, and Tamara Karsavina. It wasn’t just the dancers that helped make the Ballet Russes such a success. The company included two gifted choreographers, Mikhail Fokine and George Balanchine. Costume designs for the shows were often created by the famous Russian artist Léon Bakst or the French artist Georges Barbier and French designer Coco Chanel. The talents of other artists including Kandinsky, Benois, Picasso, and Matisse. Music for the performances commissioned by artists such as Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie, and Prokofiev. The company’s productions created a huge sensation, shocking Western Europe with its dynamic, colorful, and risque performances. The performances completely reinvigorated the art of performing a dance, bringing many visual artists to public attention. This vintage poster was created by the French artist Jean-Paul Domergue who was best known for his portraits of women. In this famous poster, Domergue has captured ‘Vronska et Alperoff’ mid-dance. The costumes appear to be classic Léon Bakst designs. Researching Bakst’s designs for the era the costume would appear similar to those created for Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird’ or Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.It is thought the poster was created for the Berlin 1923 performance of The Firebird in which the popular Alice Vronska and Konstantin Alperoff made guest appearances. Other than the extremely well-known Ballet Russes dancers such as Anna Pavlova, there is frustratingly, little information online about many of the individual Ballets Russes dancers. We do know the success of Vronsky and Alperoff’s shows in Europe led to a run at New York’s Winter Garden around 1924-1925. We also know that she moved to Lausanne in 1956 and opened her own dance school, the A.V. Academy of Classical Dance where she taught until 1980he taught until 1980. An original copy of this poster sold a few years ago for $1,600. More recently however,  an online poster store had a copy for sale in 2022 with an asking price of $9,000.