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FASHION & COSTUME DESIGN
LOTS 102-118
102
●
GILBERT ADRIAN.
FantasyWedding. Graphite and pastel on blue wove paper. 445x597 mm; 17
1
/
2
x23
1
/
2
inches,
image. Signed in red pastel, lower right corner. Matted and framed. Circa 1950.
[800/1,200]
A FANTASTICAL
,
SCIENCE
-
FICTION INSPIRED SCENE BY THE GREAT HOLLYWOOD COSTUME
DESIGNER
known as “Adrian,” showing a hippopotamus bride in wedding dress, her train being carried
by three tall beaked creatures with fishbowl hats. Created for Adrian’s “Well-Groomed Africa” series
of works exhibited in Manhattan in 1951. Ex-collection Carter Burden.
Discovered by Irving Berlin in 1921, Adrian soon became a Hollywood wunderkind. He worked
for Cecil B. DeMille before moving to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios where he became the most
influential dress designer of the era, responsible for creating the Wizard of Oz costumes including
Dorothy’s ruby slippers, as well as dressing MGM’s great stars like Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo,
and Katharine Hepburn. Broad-shouldered women’s suits and the puffy-sleeve dress became his
claim to fame and set the look and style that dominated American fashion during the 1930s and
`40s. In the 1950s, his interest and travels in South America and Africa influenced his landscapes
and fantastical fashion drawings.
102