Stowitts. Sage of the Imperial Court. Poster of the Sage of the Court from the Han and T'ang Dynasties

Carmel, CA: The Stowitts Line, 1982.. Color poster. 28 x 20 inches. Reproduction is from The Work of Stowitts for Fay-Yen-Fah, Paris, 1927, depicting authentic Chinese Court costumes of the Han and T'ang Dynasties.Pictured is an ascetic in the garb of Confucius. From his staff hangs a bunch of sacred leave,a gourd and fruit.Anna Pavlova discovered Stowitts dancing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley in the summer of 1915 and invited him to join her ballet company. He canceled graduate studies at Harvard and embarked on an adventure of excitement and romance that took him to the major stages of the Americas and Europe where stardom awaited. He left Pavlova's company to settle in Paris and pursue a solo career. Now a star in his own right he appeared in London, Stockholm, Madrid and New York. In Paris Stowitts starred in the 1924 Folies-Bergère with dazzling costumes by Erté. Few dancers have the courage to retire in their prime, especially when "trained down to racehorse shape," as Stowitts described himself. Even fewer have the courage at age 33 to launch themselves in an entirely new medium. By 1925, he was creating a career for himself as a painter from his studio on Montmartre's Avenue de Clichy. From his experiments with palette and brush ambitious collections of paintings soon followed: The Golden Age of Dance; The Fall of the Angels; and The Work of Stowitts for Fay Yen Fah, costumes and stage designs for a Chinese opera.