Ballet by Alexey Brodovitch captures the photographer’s innovative exploration of ballet through a photographic technique that emphasizes blurred, high-contrast imagery and dynamic compositions, vividly evoking the fluidity and vitality of dance. A Russian émigré and celebrated art director for Harper’s Bazaar, Brodovitch photographed a series of ballet performances in New York between 1935 and 1937. Published in 1945, the photobook serves as a visual culmination of Brodovitch’s exploration of ballet, compiling 104 black-and-white images into eleven sections—each capturing a unique ballet performance.
The project reflects Brodovitch's profound connection to ballet, rooted in his time as a set painter for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1920s Paris. The Ballets Russes, recognized as a key element of Franco-Russian artistic exchange, championed the integration of dance, music, and design—a synthesis that deeply influenced Brodovitch’s approach. His photographs embody this ethos, delving into themes of movement and the fleeting nature of performance. Created during a period of significant innovation in design and photography, Ballet challenges conventional norms by rejecting sharp, documentary-style precision in favor of an emotive and atmospheric interpretation.
The images eschew the dramatic highlights of performance, focusing instead on “unemphatic moments” that evoke the magic of the stage. Using slow shutter speeds, available light, and a handheld 35mm camera, Brodovitch’s grainy, blurred photographs imbue the dancers with a spectral, dreamlike quality. This visual approach aligns with the transient nature of live performance, rendering movement as both dynamic and elusive. The high-contrast black-and-white imagery emphasizes silhouettes, shadows, and flares of stage light.
Technically, Brodovitch embraced imperfections such as blur, grain, and overexposure, often manipulating negatives in the darkroom to amplify these qualities. Techniques like solarization and enlarging fragments of negatives underscored his intention to push the boundaries of photographic representation.
Despite its tiny initial run, Ballet quickly drew professional notice—earning AIGA’s Book of the Year in 1945—and has since been kept in view through major exhibitions and reprints. Prints from the series sit in museum collections, and recent presentations such as Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me at the Barnes Foundation (2024) have revisited the work’s making and design. Page-for-page studies and facsimiles—from Errata Editions’ Books on Books (2011) to Little Steidl’s 2024 recreation—have further broadened access, while its radical handling of blur and contrast has remained a touchstone for photographers and art directors alike, influencing figures from Richard Avedon and Lillian Bassman to William Klein.
