Oliver Messel - Costume Design for The Dark is Light Enough - 1954

Oliver Messel (1904-1978).

Countess Rosmarin Ostenburg – A Costume Design for The Dark is Light Enough (1954).

Signed l.r.: Oliver Messel.
Watercolour and chalks heightened with white.
Framed.

35 by 24 centimetres; 13 ¾ by 9 ½ inches.
(frame size 58 by 45 centimetres, 22 ¾ by 17 ¾ inches).

A costume design for the Countess in Christopher Fry’s The Dark is Light Enough.  It ran in the regions before opening at the Aldwych Theatre, London on 30 April 1954.  Messel produced both costume and set designs for this production, directed by Peter Brook.  It opened in Broadway the following year.  The role of the Countess was played by Edith Evans.

Born in London, Messel was the grandson of the illustrator Linley Sambourne.  After Eton he studied art at the Slade School of Art and by the early 1930s had established himself as one of Britain’s principal stage designers.  Initially working for the Cochran Revues, he went on to design for many theatrical, operatic, ballet and film productions.  

His books included Stage Designs and Costumes, 1933; Designs for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1957 and Delightful Food, 1958.  He exhibited at the Leicester Galleries and Redfern Gallery and also designed interiors and gardens of the Dorchester Hotel, Flaxley Abbey, Gloucestershire and elsewhere as well as several houses and grounds in Barbados and Mustique.  The Victoria & Albert Museum hold the majority of his design archives.
 

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