LONDON.- With London Fashion Week just ended and Paris Fashion Week about to start on March 4, it is extremely timely, that Nicholas Bagshawe Fine Art will be offering a atmospheric and stylish portrait of Parisian couturier Jacques Fath (1912 -1954) at the Chelsea Antiques Fair which takes place at the Chelsea Old Town Hall between Wednesday, 18th to Sunday, 22nd March 2015. It has a ticket price of just under £30,000.

Jacques Fath (1912 -1954 ), along with Pierre Balmain and Christian Dior, was considered one of the most influential Post-War fashion designers. Born in 1912, he presented his first collection in Paris in 1937 and rapidly became known for dressing the “chic, young Parisienne”, with his innovative use of unusual fabrics and trimmings, and the promotion of the 'crinoline' evening gown in the early 1950s. His clients included Ava Gardner, Greta Garbo, and Rita Hayworth and Valentino was one of his apprentices. Jacques Fath also designed costumes for several films, including those for Moira Shearer in the 1948 Powell and Pressburger film “The Red Shoes”, and for Kay Kendall for her role in the 1953 film ”Genevieve”. He died in 1954 of leukemia, and the House of Fath closed in 1957.

Measuring 51 x 35 inches (130 x 89 cms), the oil on Canvas was painted by Serge Petrovitch Ivanoff, who was born in Moscow in 1893, and showed artistic ability from a young age. On the family’s move to St. Petersburg, he took the opportunity to further his artistic studies by enrolling at the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1917, at the height of the Russian Revolution. The turmoil of the aftermath of these events prompted Serge Ivanoff, with his wife and two young children, to move permanently to Paris in 1922. A talented portraitist, he quickly established himself in Paris and soon had the celebrities of the day commissioning him to paint their portraits, including Pope Pius XI, the dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar, poet Paul Valery, composer Arthur Honegger, and many notable Russian exiles now making their home in Paris. Between 1930 and 1950 he also regularly provided illustrations for the French journal L’Illustration and painted a series of luminous and lyrical nudes. In 1950 Serge Ivanoff moved to the USA., again specialising in portraiture, including Eleanor Roosevelt and the diplomat Jefferson Caffery among his subjects. However by the 1960s he had returned to Paris where he continued to exhibit regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, receiving a Gold Medal from the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, in 1966. He died in Paris in 1983.