Brunelleschi

Umberto (1879-1949). Italian illustrator, painter and costume maker. He worked for the fashion periodicals Fémina, Gazette du Bon Ton, and the Journal des Dames et des Modes. But his name was above all linked to the vaudeville costumes of Joséphine Baker, the black Venus, and for the shows staged between the two world wars at theatres all over the world, from La Scala of Milan to the Folies Bergères, the Casino, and the Chatelet in Paris, to the Roxy in New York. His style was strongly influenced by the prevailing climate and fashions: Liberty style, orientalism, and Art Deco. The main color of his palette was blue. Once past the exaggerations of Art Deco, he attained a cleaner line, reduced to essentials. He began at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and later concentrated on studies of the nude. In 1900, he moved to Paris where, in order to earn a living he worked as a caricaturist under the pseudonym Harun-al Rashid. He worked at L’Assiette au Beurre together with Paul Iribe. From 1903 to 1910 he participated in the Paris Salons as a painter. In 1914 he returned to Italy, but later settled in Paris for good. In the last part of his life he worked only as a book illustrator, in particular on erotic limited editions.