Divinely Elegant: The World of Ernst Dryden

Viennese designer Dryden left his mark on magazines, haute couture, movie costumes, erotica, posters and more; his advertisement for a liqueur made a noble thing of a goblet and a tousled bird, while another for a shoe company exalted a robust icon of a womanly ankle. Born Ernst Deutsch in 1887, the artist, who studied with Gustav Klimt, made his name as a poster designer in Berlin in the years before WW I. After the war, he returned to Vienna to design menswear; in 1926, he joined a Berlin fashion magazine as illustrator. During the '30s, he ventured to the United States, continuing his career as a couturier and ending up in Hollywood. Celebrating a ``lost world of elegance,'' Dryden's graphic work revealed here is enchanting: leggy, fey flappers burst from birdcages; attenuated Olympians stride down boulevards of immaculate white space. In tandem with the illustrations, first-time author Lipmann ably sketches the course of a rich career. (Oct.)