December 6, 1930
Seven sketches in color by Antoon van Welie, who is recognized as one of the prominent members of the contemporary Dutch conservative school, comprise a notable feature of the exhibition of costume and stage designs for the 1930-31 season of the Little Theatre Opera Company which opens to the public at the Brooklyn Museum on December 6th to continue for a month
Three sketches, which serve in part to announce a project which the Board of Directors of the Little Theatre Opera Company proposes to carry out within the next few years, are for the mural and foyer decorations of an opera house, devoted to Opera Comique, Architects' drawings for this opera house were completed last spring by Morris and O'Connell of New York City, and also will be on exhibition. They include exterior and interior drawings and five floor plans.
Mr. van Welie, who recently completed mural designs for the Conference Room in the Peace Palace at the Hague, has executed sketches for the main ceiling mural and for three of the twenty separate murals which will decorate the walls on the entrance and box levels of the opera house. The twenty panels will be devoted to an allegorical interpretation of musical terms, suggesting In color and subject the lighter, romantic music of the opera comique classics.
In the foyer Mr. van Welie plans to have a portrait gallery of American musicians and artists who have achieved fame. The sketch of the gallery and two units for it, sketches of Isadora Duncan and Geraldine Farrar, complete his contribution to the exhibition.
In creating a portrait gallery, Mr. van Welie is working the field where has has achieved preeminence as a painter of the notables of Europe and America, royalty, artists, churchmen and diplomats. Among the important portraits executed by Mr. van Welie are those Mussolini, Pope Pius XI, Isadora Duncan, the Dutch Prince Consort Henry, Mme. Yvette Guilbert, Sarah Bernhardt, the Duchess of Vendome, Mlle. Cecile Sorel and Mme. Gemma Bellincioni.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1916 - 1930. 10-12_1930, 168-9. View Original
