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##### April 22, 1990 OBITUARY ## Erte, a Master of Fashion, Stage and Art Deco Design, Is Dead at 97 ##### By ALAN RIDING Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES Erte, the Russian-born Art Deco designer whose prolific career in theater, sculpture and the graphic arts spanned most of the 20th century, died here today after a short illness. He was 97 years old. Erte, whose name derived from the French pronunciation of the initials of his real name, Romain de Tirtoff, continued to work until just a few weeks ago. His recent designs included the set for the musical ''Stardust,'' which recently ended a run in Washington, and the set and costumes for ''Easter Parade'' at Radio City Music Hall. A slightly built man with a shock of white hair, he fell ill last month with kidney problems during a vacation on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. He was flown back to Paris two weeks ago and died this morning at the Cochin Hospital here. Erte gained recognition as a fashion designer in Paris before World War I, but his first major success was as a stage designer in the 1920's and 1930's. His name has long been identified with the great music halls of France, the United States and Britain. Art Deco Revival In the 1970's and 1980's, when he turned his hand to lithographs and serigraphs, he became widely known in the United States. As the Art Deco style came back into fashion, many of his works, including ''The Alphabet'' and ''The Numbers'' series, were sold as posters. Born into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg on Nov. 23, 1892, Erte was attracted to the theater and at one point wavered between becoming a dancer or an artist. But eventually, he recalled years later, ''I came to the conclusion that I could live without dancing but could not give up my passion for painting and design.'' In 1912, he moved to Paris and collaborated briefly with the fashion designer Paul Poiret. Moving on to the theater, he designed costumes for an exotic young dancer named Mata Hari, who would be shot as a spy for the Germans in 1917. Performers from Sarah Bernhardt to Anna Pavlova would wear his costumes. Between 1915 and 1937 he designed hundreds of covers for the monthly fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar. His highly stylized designs of sinuous women draped in beads and furs helped define fashion for a generation. His work would also appear in Vogue, the Illustrated London News, Cosmopolitan and Ladies' Home Journal. From Stage Sets to Lamps Between the two World Wars, his elaborate stage and costume designs were in much demand for operas, theater and ballets in Paris, Monte Carlo, New York, Chicago and Glyndebourne, but perhaps most memorably for music hall productions, which was enormously popular at the time. He produced sets and costumes for sumptuous productions like Irving Berlin's ''Music Box,'' George White's ''Scandals,'' the Ziegfeld Follies, the Folies-Bergere and shows at the Casino de Paris and the London Palladium. Erte was known for his ability to turn his talent in many directions. He reportedly painted only once in oils, preferring the gouache or tempera medium. He accepted commissions to design jewelry, lamps, furniture and interior decor. A major turning point in his career came in 1965, when he met Eric and Salome Estorick, the founders of Seven Arts Ltd. of New York and London. Seven Arts remained the exclusive agent for Erte's work until his death. #1967 Exhibition When the Estoricks organized an exhibition of 170 of his works in New York in 1967, the Metropolitan Museum of Art bought the entire collection. ''It was, I believe, without precedent that a museum bought an entire exhibition of a living artist,'' Erte wrote many years later. ''Certainly it was a first time for the Met.'' After another highly acclaimed show in London, the Estoricks advised Erte to produce lithographs and serigraphs.''They pointed out that with graphics I could reach the very large public that these exhibitions had created,'' the artist wrote in the introduction to ''Erte at Ninety-Five,'' a book published to mark a recent birthday. Erte enjoyed doing series of related lithographs, among them ''The Precious Stones,'' ''Signs of the Zodiac'' and ''The Seven Deadly Sins.'' He used the theme of ''La Traviata'' for a set of Dunhill playing cards, with each suit represented by a different act. In his later years Erte turned to sculpture, using many of his earlier designs as models for another art form. Energy in His '90s ''He was working until just a few weeks ago,'' Mr. Estorick said in a telephone interview from New York. ''He was doing very well. He had made a lot of money over the past 25 years and was building a home in Majorca. He was full of energy until the end.'' In the book published for his 95th birthday, Erte wrote that he preferred variety in his life. ''I loathe wearing the same clothes two days running or eating the same dishes over and over again,'' he wrote. ''I've always loved traveling because it varies the decor of my life. Monotony engenders boredom and I have never been bored in my life.'' He liked working with his two cats, Caramelle and Talia, by his side, and classical music playing in the background. ''I'm in a different world,'' he wrote, ''a dream world that invites oblivion. People take drugs to achieve such freedom from their daily cares. I've never taken drugs. I've never needed them.''
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