Alexey Brodovitch: Ballet (Books on Books)

Abstract

Published in 1945, Alexey Brodovitch's Ballet is easily among the most legendary photobooks of the twentieth century: the first and only book he authored as photographer, it was printed in a small run of a few hundred copies, and quickly became a rarity. A Russian émigré in 1920s Paris, Brodovitch began his career as a scene painter for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, and had firmly established himself as a leading art director and graphic designer in New York when he began photographing the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in the mid-1930s. Shot on 35 mm film, Brodovitch's images radically disregard conventions of "good" technique; blurred and fast-paced, they capture the motion and spirit of dance both in rehearsals and on stage. Errata Editions reproduces every captivating page spread from this rarely seen classic of both dance and photography history, making it at last available to a broader audience.