| Sleep in a Nest |
| of | Flames |
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The Paper Ball: magic from newsprint |
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Alexander Calder procession, "The Paper Ball", footage courtesy Wadsworth Atheneum |
| During the 1930's Ford and Tchelitchew, while based in Paris, would make frequent trips overseas, including Hartford, Connecticut in 1936. There was located the Wadsworth Atheneum, the oldest public art museum in the United States and Chick Austin, who was one of the most innovative museum directors in this country. As a follow-up to Four Saints in Three Acts, the first truly modernist opera in the United States which premiered at the museum in 1934, Austin was planning a great fête for which Tchelitchew was to design the costumes and decor. Other artists worked on the event, including Eugene Berman and perhaps most notably Alexander Calder, who made a brown paper menagerie of horses, elephants and lions, which were part of a larger procession of bizarre and fanciful costumes. The museum shared with us its remarkable archival footage of this event. We have reshaped and tinted this film, adding Ford's firsthand account, as well as an interview with Eugene Gaddis, the Atheneum archivist, conducted in the Avery Court, where all this took place. It was one of the signature events of the 1930's. This section displays how the ephemeral can free artists and how with a sense of whimsy and camp they can create works of art that retain the delight of childhood. |
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| Avery Court with décor by Pavel Tchelitchew Photo courtesy Wadsworth Atheneum |
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| ©SYMBIOSIS FILMS INC. 2000 |
Lincoln Kirstein as "beggar" at the Paper
Ball, photo courtesy Wadsworth Atheneum