Evening Night 

Curator: This print is by Erte. It is called "Evening Night" and looks to me like a meditation on feminine archetypes rendered in a bold Art Deco style. Editor: Immediately I'm struck by the flat planes of color, how they contrast and interact. Look at the bold gold banding top and bottom – it’s almost like framing the labor involved in creating luxury for display. The graphic nature is fascinating, a real departure from more traditional representational art. Curator: Precisely! And consider how Erte employs color to define character. The figure on the left seems bathed in passionate purples and reds, almost volcanic with that burst of sunset at the bottom. But the figure on the right is cool and ethereal, a nocturne in blue. Stars as earrings? Talk about evocative symbols! Editor: Right, those hues definitely indicate more than just simple decoration. The print medium itself—most likely a serigraph—speaks volumes about the era's fascination with mass production and accessibility, in tension with high fashion. Erte was shrewd, exploiting these opportunities. Think about the labour required in producing such luxury fashion designs... It's presented to us devoid of its material origins. Curator: It is definitely devoid, but not wholly absent, as it becomes its own kind of mythology: The sunrise and sunset in each woman’s outfit represents duality. It recalls symbolic figures throughout history, the sun gods Apollo and Ra, for instance. Erte draws us into these long standing myths in a newly immediate way, even as he updates them. Editor: I do think, though, the piece engages in the contemporary cultural dialogue of its time. To look at these pieces as representations is also an over-reading; rather, consider them expressions of contemporary artistic labor. The stark contrast in how the clothes are visually presented makes the social disparity very obvious. It is, after all, decorative art. Curator: True, and yet Erte, whether intentionally or not, creates figures imbued with deep significance. I’m still captivated by those stars... It’s as if the artist pulled those stellar images from the night sky. Editor: I think for me it’s about recognising the skill involved, especially the translation of fashion and theatrical design into something reproducible but desirable, like this print. Curator: So ultimately, it's about the way symbols carry resonance throughout our shared history while others still point to how labour manifests meaning through form? A fitting synthesis. Editor: I agree; examining the artist’s process is crucial to appreciating "Evening Night," not just in terms of symbolism, but the wider fashion ecosystem from which it emerged.