Marcel Vertès - Litho zonder titel - Sold

Marcel Vertès (born Marcell Vértes), was born on August 10, 1895 in Budapest, Hungary. His first commercially successful artworks were sketches of corpses, criminals and prostitutes that he made for a sensational Budapest magazine. He then produced illustrations for many of the clandestine print publications against the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I. After the war, he moved from his native Hungary to Vienna, Austria and then to Paris, where he was a student at the Academie Julian and lived and worked in the famous Latin Quarter. Vertes quickly established himself as a fixture on the Parisian art scene and his work became lighter and more lyrical. In Paris he concentrated on illustration, painting and graphics, especially lithography. In 1935 he made his first trip to New York to make contacts. Two years later he had his first one-man show in New York. At the end of World War II, he returned to New York with his wife, where he escaped the Nazi invasion of Paris for two days. He then began dividing his time between New York and Paris. Ten years later he returned to his beloved Paris and spent the remaining years of his life there. While in the United States, he became an advisor to the producers and set designers of the 1952 award-winning film Moulin Rouge, about the life and times of artist Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). He won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Interestingly, Marcel Vertès originally earned his tuition for his European education by making forgeries of Lautrec's works. As such, his expertise was showcased in the film when his hand is used as Toulouse Lautrec's hand as he drew, and his images were used in the film accordingly and given proper credit in the film's trailer. Vertes also appeared in the UK production credits as Color Production Designer and Costume Designer for the film, with Schiaparalli (the same from Paris and Italy). Both together won the 1952 British Academy Film Award for Best Costume Design for Moulin Roug. Vertès is also responsible for the original murals in Café Carlyle at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City and those in Peacock Alley at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, also in New York. He designed all the sets for the entire Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus show in 1956, was an illustration contributor for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and a member of the jury at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. He was made an Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1955, when he designed for ballets at the Paris Opera. Vertès was a member of the American Art League, and under the sponsorship of the American Federation of Arts, his work traveled to museums across the country in a celebrity portrait exhibition, "As They Were". Marcel Vertès died in Paris on October 31, 1961, at the age of 66.