Erté

Exhibition at the Labirinto della Masone, Fontanellato (Parma), 28 March – 28 June 2026

Born in Saint Petersburg, Romain de Tirtoff (1892–1990), known as Erté, is one of the most iconic artists of the Art Deco movement. One of the most versatile and visionary set designers, costume designers and visual artists of the 20th century, he succeeded in fusing the decorative and symbolic elements of interwar modernity into a unique language. His drawings, combining sophisticated geometries with impossible elegance, recount the evolution of styles and the inaccessible world of divas, as well as the dialogue between haute couture and mass culture.

This exhibition catalogue presents a wide selection of Erté’s works, with a particular focus on those from the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, undoubtedly the most original and successful of his entire career. It traces the career of an artist capable of capturing, with taste and irony, the evolution of fashion and its most dazzling and luxurious creations, before drawing parallels between Erté and two Italian artists, Alberto Martini and Umberto Brunelleschi, revealing a shared vocabulary of great elegance, with highly distinctive stylistic and decorative elements.