The artist known as Erté was born Romain de Tirtoff in November 1892 in St. Petersburg, Russia. His father was a Russian admiral and his mother an amateur painter. Growing up, Erté was surrounded by art, music, and theatre and showed artistic talent. At five, he became fascinated with fashion illustrations in French magazines, sparking his interest in design and clothing. Despite his father’s wishes for a military career, Erté enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg to study drawing and painting. He mastered line work, a skill that became a hallmark of his later creations. At 18, Erté passed his baccalaureate exams. When his father asked what he wanted as a reward, he said, “A passport.” He had dreamed of Paris since visiting the 1900 Exposition Universelle with his mother.

In 1912, Erté left Russia for Paris. After working briefly at a small boutique named Caroline, he sent his drawings to the house of renowned couturier Paul Poiret, known as the “king of fashion.” He signed a one-year contract with Poiret, who coined the nickname Erté—the French pronunciation of Romain de Tirtoff’s initials, RT. Erté illustrated garments and assisted with stage productions, where his signature glamour was evident in the fantastical costumes and theatrical details. Though his tenure with Poiret was short, it laid the foundation for his career.

In 1915, Erté began working freelance as a fashion illustrator. To secure his next contract, he flipped a coin: one side Harper’s Bazaar (then called Harper’s Bazar), the other Vogue. Harper’s Bazaar won. Erté submitted his designs and was hired immediately. He worked for the publication for 22 years, creating over 200 covers and 2,000 illustrations. These covers established motifs closely associated with Erté’s work and Art Deco: stylized forms, bold colour palettes, and geometric compositions with elegant restraint.

The same lavish style marked Erté’s theatrical designs. He worked for the Folies-Bergère in Paris from 1919 to 1930, designing costumes for stars like Josephine Baker. By 1925, Erté’s fame attracted Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios. Erté was invited to Hollywood and contracted to work on costume and set designs. He dressed Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and most notably Carmel Mayer in Ben-Hur (1925), the most expensive silent film ever made. The cotton costumes he designed for La Bohème (1926) were refused by star Lilian Gish, who said, “I can only stand silks on my skin.” Erté said, “I wasn’t allowed to do any other work by the contract, and I got bored, so I left and went back to do shows for George White and Ziegfeld in New York.” By the late 1920s, he had designed costumes and sets for nearly every major Broadway revue, including the Ziegfeld Follies and George White’s Scandals. Back in Paris, a 1926 exhibition at Galerie Charpentier secured his place in France’s national collections.

Throughout the 1930s, Erté created costume and set designs for theatre and opera in Paris, New York, Chicago, and London. After more than 20 years, he resigned from Harper’s Bazaar in 1937. During a period of relative obscurity in the 1940s and 1950s, he continued working steadily in theatre. A revival of interest in Art Deco reintroduced Erté to a new audience in the 1960s. His close friendship with collectors Eric and Salome Estorick led to an exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries in London and New York in 1967. On the eve of the New York opening, Erté was astonished to find every piece sold. The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased the entire exhibition and held Erté and Some of His Contemporaries the following year. Because monographic exhibitions of living artists were not yet permitted, the show juxtaposed Erté with Léon Bakst, Raoul Dufy, and Natalia Goncharova.

By the 1970s, Erté was producing bronze sculptures and limited-edition serigraphs embossed with gold- and silver-foil stamping. He was awarded the Chevalier du Mérite Artistique et Culturel by the French government, followed by the Officier des Arts et des Lettres, the Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris, and the Légion d’Honneur. His autobiography, Things I Remember, was published in 1975. The following year, the Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo hosted a solo exhibition. In 1979, the Smithsonian Institution organized a retrospective that travelled to major museums across North America and Mexico. In the 1980s, he produced posters for Folies-Bergères and Campari, as well as a Playboy magazine cover. Erté continued working until the end. His second memoir, My Life, My Art: An Autobiography, was published in 1989 at age 97. When the Broadway show Stardust was revived in 1990, Erté designed its costumes. He died in Paris later that year.

Architectural Digest Visits: Erté, May/June 1977

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A patron and scholar of Cubism, Douglas Cooper was born in London in 1911. He was the eldest of three children of Mabel and Arthur Cooper, who lived on Eaton Place. His family had made a fortune in Australia through real estate and shipping. At thirteen, Cooper met Mrs. Samuel Courtauld, wife of the English textile millionaire who possessed Britain’s greatest collection of Impressionist works, including Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Thirty years later, Cooper wrote the introduction for the collection’s catalogue, noting this early experience defined his career. He studied languages at Cambridge and art history in Paris and Germany.

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Mina Loy was born in London, England, on December 27, 1882. She was the eldest of three daughters of Sigmund and Julia Bryan Lowy. At 17, her father sent her to study art in Munich. When she returned to London, Loy studied with painter Augustus John and exhibited in student shows where she met her first husband, Hugh “Stephen” Oscar William Haweis. In 1903, she moved to Paris to continue her studies and married Haweis that December. Loy and Haweis met many emerging modernist artists and writers, including Gertrude and Leo Stein, who introduced them to Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso. They exhibited in the annual Salon d’Automne in 1906 alongside the works of Robert Delaunay and Paul Cézanne.

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Dolores Olmedo Patiño is said to have been born in December 1908 in Mexico City, though her true age remains a matter of debate. Her father was a businessman who died when she was four, and her mother was a schoolteacher passionate about art. As a teenager, Olmedo met Diego Rivera at the Ministry of Public Education while he was working on murals. The artist asked her mother’s permission to draw her portrait, and they became lifelong friends. She studied philosophy, art history, music, and law before moving to Paris to study anthropology and museology.

When Olmedo returned home, she became one of the first women to excel in real estate development in Mexico. The business connected her with leading industrialists and politicians and she became an art collector. As a friend and benefactress of Rivera, her collection included dozens of little-known early works by Rivera in post-Impressionist and Cubist styles. She also owned acclaimed paintings from Rivera’s later period, including La Tehuana (1955), a portrait of Olmedo wearing the native dress of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Olmedo and Rivera became especially close before his death in 1957. Rivera spent his last years at her home in Acapulco, where he painted portraits of her and her children and a series of sunsets. Before his death, Rivera designated Olmedo to administer his and Frida Kahlo’s estates. She told him of her plans to create a museum to show his work, and he advised her on which paintings to select. Her collection includes over 140 works by Rivera and those of his first wife, Angelina Beloff. Though they were not friends, which caused controversy, Olmedo acquired 25 pieces by Kahlo. It is the world’s largest collection of her works. Among them are “The Broken Column,” “Henry Ford Hospital,” “Self-Portrait with Monkey,” and “A Few Small Nips.”

Olmedo was known as a fierce defender of Mexican traditions and customs. She amassed a large collection of folk art and crafts made from papier-maché, copper, tin, and ceramics. In the 1950s, she promoted the creation of Day of the Dead altars to preserve the work of Mexican artisans. “For me, altars have been a lifelong tradition; I remember that my mother would set up a small altar in our home, which always included Mexican food and decorations.”

In 1962, Olmedo bought and renovated Hacienda La Noria, a 16th-century Spanish colonial estate in Xochimilco, south of Mexico City. The former monastery was surrounded by gardens of bougainvillea, mandarin orange trees, nochebuenas, and native plants. She kept peacocks, ducks, Canada geese, chickens, and Xoloitzcuintles, an endangered species of hairless pre-Hispanic dog. The residence housed her paintings, library, pre-Hispanic figurines and sculptures, Chinese cloisonné, ivory, and artwork by artists she patronized in her later years, including José Juárez, Francisco Guevara, and Pablo O’Higgins.

Olmedo was married and divorced three times. She had a daughter and three sons with her first husband, Howard S Phillips, a British journalist who died in 1972. For decades, Olmedo collected, translated, and published songs and stories from various indigenous groups in Mexico, including the Nahuatl freedom song “Resistencia frente a la noche.” In the late 1980s, she announced plans to convert her hacienda into a museum, which opened in September 1994. She donated her entire collection. “This new museum is meant to showcase my passion for collecting the work and worldview of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.” Olmedo died in 2002 in Mexico City. In 2020, the museum closed for renovations and reopened in May 2026.

The Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum, Voices of Mexico, January-March 1995

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Valentine Hugo was born Valentine Marie Augustine Gross in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1887, the only daughter of Auguste Gross and Zélie Démelin. Her father, a painter, raised her to share his interests in theatre and music until his death in 1903. Hugo excelled at drawing in school and …

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Cecil Beaton’s Reddish House and Pelham Place appeared in successive magazine features, including Vogue. Beaton says it best regarding his homes, so this week I am sharing excerpts from some of my favourite articles.

^{Read about Beaton’s Ashcombe House here.}

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By the mid-1930s, Miguel and Rosa Covarrubias had settled permanently in Tizapán, San Ángel (Mexico City). They renovated the home, adding a large stu…

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Della Casa Appa was the first woman from the Zuni Pueblo (A:shiwi) to become a professional silversmith. She was born in 1889 into a traditional Zuni family known by the surname Appa (sometimes recorded as Casi). There is scarce documentation about her parents or siblings. Appa’s educat…

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Artist and writer Amy Nimr was the daughter of prominent Syrian media mogul Faris Nimr. Born in Cairo, she spent her early life between Egypt, France, and England. Nimr attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College and the …

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Suzy Frelinghuysen was born in 1911 in New Jersey from a long line of clergymen and politicians. She had a privileged upbringing in Elberon. When her father died in 1924, the family moved to Princeton. Though she had no formal training, childhood trips to Europe exposed her to art an…

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Amelia Peláez del Casal was born on January 5, 1896 in Yaguajay, to Dr. Manuel Peláez y Laredo and María del Carmen del Casal y Lastra. She was the fifth of eleven siblings. Homeschooled by her mother, a teacher who fostered her early talent for painting, Peláez grew up within C…

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Betty and Howard Liljestrand married in 1937 and moved to Hawaii that year. Betty was from Iowa and Howard grew up in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, where his parents were medical missionaries. The couple initially intended to return to China after their studies, but political unrest made it impossible. Howard completed his medical internship at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu while Betty worked as a secretary. The Liljestrands ultimately chose to settle in Hawaii and began planning their family home.

Unlike most residents who built near the beach, the Liljestrands wanted an elevated site with cooler temperatures, inspired by Howard’s childhood summers in the Tibetan mountains. They purchased 2.5 acres on Mount Tantalus in 1946 after a decade-long search. Two years later, they traded this land with the Territory of Hawaii for a half-acre parcel on the other side of the ridgeline. Their next challenge was finding an architect to realize their vision.

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I recently went to Hawaii for the first time and discovered an incredible world of art and design. It’s no surprise I was drawn to Mid-century and earlier styles in Honolulu, yet the city is filled with art and architecture from every era.

This guide focuses on public installations, architecture, historic landmarks, and several must-see museums. Most of these sites are free and within walking distance, following a route from Kalihi-Palama through Downtown Honolulu to Waikiki Beach...

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As the new year approaches, I am reminded of my favourite calendar by Anna Zinkeisen, commissioned by Whitbread Brewery in 1957. Below, I share the story behind Zinkeisen’s vibrant depictions of the twelve zodiac signs, along with selected highlights of book releases and art exhibitions for the coming year.

Happy Solstice—brighter days ahead!

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Lady Bird Strickland, also known as Lady Bird Cleveland, was born in Cornelia, Georgia, on July 24, 1926 as one of six children of African, Cherokee, and Irish descent. Cleveland began drawing at an early age despite limited support and resources. Her mother ran Sally’s Tea Room from…

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Ana Maria Gómez González, later known as Maruja Mallo, was born in 1902 in Galicia, Spain, as the fourth of fourteen children. Demonstrating artistic talent from an early ag…

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