Table of Contents Table of Contents
Previous Page  140 / 172 Next Page
Information
Show Menu
Previous Page 140 / 172 Next Page
Page Background

220

JOAN JUNYER.

3 Costume designs (Minotaur and 2 others). Mixed media on board. Average size 750x553

mm; 29

1

/

2

x21

3

/

4

inches, board. Signed and dated (1947) in pencil, lower margin. Edges vari-

ously chipped, one design with numerous repairs to recto and verso, pencil notations on

verso.

[600/900]

Designs include Minotaur dancer, trio of dancers in grey and yellow, and female in costume. Junyer

was a highly talented and prolific Catalan costume and theater designer of the 20th century. Studying

in Majorca before the Spanish Civil War, he became interested in folk dances linked with the island’s

agricultural festivals. He was deaf by birth but expressed the movement of the dancers through color

and abstract forms here and later in Cuba. Over the years he became very interested in design theory,

producing a large body of work , most successfully designing sets and costumes in 1943 for The

Cuckolds’ Fair for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1945 the Museum of Modern Art mounted

an exhibition of his drawings, and maquettes concerning the function of painting and sculpture in rela-

tion to theater design.Two years later, he created Cretan sets and costumes for John Taras’s ballet The

Minotaur for Ballet Society which were highly praised but the turgid choreography and scoring closed

the ballet after only two performances. It broke Junyer who returned to Spain to paint, leaving theater

behind him—Spangenberg; editor.The Golden Age of Costume and Set design for the Ballet Russe

de Monte Carlo 1938-1944.The Art Institute of Chicago holds several similar designs in their per-

manent collection donated by Lincoln Kirstein.

221

NO LOT.

220