Mask of a faun by Oliver Messel, ca. 1922.

A faun mask by Oliver Messel. A man's head consisting of painted papier maché and glazed and painted synthetic hair. He has two horns emerging from his hair.

Acquired with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A

In 1922, after an education at Eton, Messel studied to be a painter at the Slade School of Fine Art under Henry Tonks; Rex Whistler was a fellow student. Messel’s formal studies concentrated on life drawing and painting, but Messel, along with Whistler, made masks from papier maché and wax for student events. An exhibition of Messel’s masks at the Claridge Galleries in London in 1925 led to Messel’s first theatre design commission to design masks for the prestigious Diaghilev ballet production of Zéphyre et Flore, directed by George Braque and performed at the London Coliseum in 1925. Messel also made masks for other purposes including for friends to wear to dances, as lamp shades and for wall decoration.
Charles B. Cochran engaged Messel to design costumes, masks and sets for his annual revues at the London Pavilion from 1926 onwards; these revues, consisting of songs, sketches and chorus numbers, provided Messel with ample opportunities to develop and exercise his talent for minute attention to detail, inventive use of materials, including the use of rubber, dish cloths and fabrics painted to suggest embroidery, and imaginative borrowings from historical periods and styles. Messel’s reputation grew slowly; most notably, critics praised Messel’s disturbing masks for ‘Dance, Dance, Little Lady’, a song by Nöel Coward from the 1928 Cochran revue entitled This Year of Grace; the scene was described by James Laver as “a modern Dance of Death.” (Laver, 1933).
Lord Snowdon, Oliver Messel's nephew, inherited Messel's theatre designs and other designs and artefacts. The designs were briefly stored in a disused chapel in Kensington Palace before being housed at the V&A from 1981 on indefinite loan. The V&A Theatre Museum purchased the Oliver Messel collection from Lord Snowdon in 2005.

Historical significance: One of Messel's most celebrated masks, and which led to his career as a costume and set designer.

This mask was probably made during Messel's last year at the Slade School of Art, 1922.

Reason For Production: Private
Reason For Production: Commission

Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic designs informed by period styles. His work spans ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Messel’s traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, and he increasingly concentrated on painting, interior and textile design, including designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.

Messel’s career as a theatre designer began with a prestigious commission to make ‘masks and symbols’ for a Diaghilev Ballet production, Zéphyre et Flore, in 1925. The masks were exhibited at the Claridge Gallery and attracted the interest of C. B. Cochran (1872-1951), the theatre impressario. He commissioned Messel to make masks for his revues from 1926 onward, and subsequently asked him to design costumes and sets. Messel also designed masks for private commissions and as interior decoration.

According to Messel’s inscription ‘It was shown to C. B. Cochran and subsequently led to all my work in the theatre.’ It may have been exhibited at the Claridge Gallery, London, 1925. Messel has applied painted and glazed synthetic hair to the painted papier mâché mask.

S.239-2006