On Sale [ballet Russe De Monte Carlo] Miró, Joan. (1893–1983) "jeux D'enfants" - Original Photograph, 1932 Essentials [YAbDhSeW]

Original silver gelatin photograph of this historic production by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, ca. 1932, depicting a team of six dancers in abstract costumes dancing before a woman lying on her side upstage.  Abstract shapes grace the rear curtain and the city names of "New York" and "Paris" can be seen on pylons to the edges of the stage.   Typed label, "Ballet russe de Monte Carlo," to verso.  10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm).  Overall in fine condition.  

In 1926, Joan Miró and Max Ernst were tasked by Serge Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes to design sets for Romeo and Juliet. The Paris premiere stirred controversy among Surrealists like André Breton and Louis Aragon, who opposed the fusion of art and commerce. But Miró continued to be drawn to the enchanting world of ballet and later designed the costumes and set for Léonide Massine's ballet, Jeux d'enfants, with music by Georges Bizet and scenario by Boris Kochno. Jeux d'enfants was first performed by the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo in Monte Carlo in 1932. Miró not only designed all the costumes and the set but also painted the front curtain and the props and executed several paintings to adorn the stage.

The Original Ballet Russe (originally named Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo) was a ballet company established in 1931 by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil as a successor to the Ballets Russes, founded in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev.  The company assumed the new name Original Ballet Russe after a split between de Basil and Blum in 1937.  De Basil led the renamed company, while Blum and others founded a new company under the name Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.  The large-scale professional ballet company toured extensively in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the United States, and Central and South America until 1947.  Blum, however, fell victim to the Holocaust.  Arrested in by the Nazis in Paris in 1941, he was killed in Auschwitz in the following year.