Summer Is Waning: Georges Lepape

Once August is here, New Englanders are fond of saying, “well, summer’s almost over.” I prefer to resist that inclination, since summer always seems so short in Massachusetts anyway. I’m extending summer imagery with this delightful illustration by Georges Lepape of interior design and post-World War I (1914–1918) fashion. Aside from being crazy about the domination of cobalt blue in this painting, the woman’s simplified features remind me of a Julian Opie (born 1958) portrait!

Georges Lepape (1887–1971, France/United States), Summer Dining Room, ca. 1919. Original painting for the cover of Vogue published May 15, 1919. Watercolor on paper, 11 11⁄16" x 9 ¼" (29.7 x 23.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum. © 2024 Estate of Georges Lepape / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (BMA-4554lppars)

Lepape's aesthetics were heavily influenced by manuscript illustrations from Iran, as well as “Orientalist” productions by the Ballets Russes in Paris in which “Middle Eastern” costumes often dominated. The influence of Persian manuscripts is particularly evident in the domination of brilliant patterns and bright color in Summer Dining Room. Lepape applied pattern and color in Western one-point perspective, even gifting the viewer with the horizon line and vanishing point up above the woman's head. The Persian aesthetic is otherwise somewhat lacking in this interior design illustration, although the woman does appear to be wearing “harem pants.”

The figures in Lepape’s artwork, both male and female, tend to be attenuated, elegantly slender, and displaying some residual qualities of line characteristic of Art Nouveau. His forms are typically flat with large areas of bright color like Persian miniatures. No consistent light source ever complicated his compositions. Details like shadows would have taken focus away from the fashions. The flatness of his forms creates a decorative surface. The complex geometric patterns and pared-down forms prefigure the aesthetic of the upcoming Art Deco style, which Lepape also excelled in after moving to the United States.

Fashion plates—illustrations for marketing upcoming fashion trends—did not exist in magazine form until the last quarter of the 1700s. There were certainly indications of what fashionable people wore going back to the ancient world. These primarily took the form of painted or sculpted portraits or painted genre scenes that documented what stylish people were wearing at the time. The illustration of contemporary fashions in printmaking media existed as early as the 1500s, although they were not meant to advertise or encourage sales of a particular designer.

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) produced studies of what fashionable Italian women were wearing on his trips to Italy. The Bohemian Baroque artist Wenzel Hollar (1607–1677) documented the fashionable dress of people (mostly women) from several countries in Europe. Jacques Callot (1592–1635), an artist known for his print series The Miseries of War, issued a print series entitled The Nobility that documented the fabulous dress of members of the French court.

Accompanied by information about where materials and styles could be bought, fashion plates were first introduced in a French magazine called Le Mercure Galant in 1677. In France, the practice did not last as long as the magazine. Despite the seeming dominance of interest in Europe in what the fashionable French were wearing, it was in Britain that the first systemic, widespread production of fashion prints, mostly for women, began.

The British publication The Lady's Magazine first appeared in 1770. Rather than showing the coming extravagant styles for members of the nobility, this journal presented guidance for the ordinary woman of means. From that time on, the idea caught on and the publications proliferated greatly. The Lady's Magazine was followed by La Cabinet de Modes (1780s) in France and Modealmanach (1780s) in Germany. The printing method was primarily engraving and etching, often with hand-coloring added.

The reign of Napoleon I (1804–1815) in France established Paris as the center of fashion design. With lithography replacing etched and engraved fashion plates, the number of journals dedicated to the latest fashions expanded greatly in France. French fashions and the style of fashion plates soon became the model on which many other publications throughout Europe, and eventually in the United States, were based. In 1905, Vogue was established in the United States and became the premier fashion publication in the West. In the meantime, simple drawings of the latest fashions continued to be a staple in American newspapers through the 1900s, despite the introduction of photography.

Lepape was born in Paris and educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in the city. He was friends with avant-garde artists such as Georges Braque (1882–1963), although his personal style was more commercially oriented to realism. He also painted witty portraits. Lepape is primarily known for his ten-year collaboration with fashion designer Paul Poiret (1879–1944) and his publication Les Choses de Paul Poiret. He also gained recognition as an haute couture fashion illustrator for his work in Vogue. In 1912, Lepape also began to produce fashion illustrations for the Gazette de Bon Ton. By 1926, Lepape had moved to New York City where he solidified a long and profitable relationship with Vogue. He continued to be highly sought-after by leading publications and received commissions for luxury brands, as well as costume and set designs, until his death in 1971.

Correlations to Davis programs: Fashion Fundamentals: Chapter 1; A Personal Journey 2E: 3.1, 3.3; The Visual Experience 3E: 12.4; Experience Painting: Chapter 4; Communicating through Graphic Design 2E: pp. 64–81; Discovering Drawing 3E: Chapter 6