John Piper CH
'The Prince of the Pagodas', 1957
watercolour and gouache with wax resist and collage
40 x 73 cm
15 3/4 x 28 3/4 in
15 3/4 x 28 3/4 in
The Prince of the Pagodas is Benjamin Britten's only ballet and was partly conceived by the choreographer John Cranko (with whom Piper also worked on a number of other projects)....
The Prince of the Pagodas is Benjamin Britten's only ballet and was partly conceived by the choreographer John Cranko (with whom Piper also worked on a number of other projects). It was first performed at Covent Garden in 1957. The present work is Piper's original design for the first production's main backdrop. The inventive and colourful use of cut collage anticipates the artist's original abstract work of the late 1950s and early 1960s.