Barry-Kay-Archive.org Stage and costume designs by artist Barry Kay
Title
Barry Kay Archive - featuring stage and costume designs for the performing arts - photographic, socio-anthropological documentaries - notes, texts, articles, reviews - itemized biography about Barry Kay
Description
Barry Kay
Barry Kay (born Melbourne, Australia, 1932 - died London, England, 1985) was a highly talented, internationally acclaimed stage and costume designer, who later in his career also emerged a distinguished photographer. Following his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris, he designed for the ballet, the drama and the opera alike, working with renowned directors and choreographers at major theatres and opera houses and their companies worldwide.
Kay specifically excelled in designing for the ballet. Motivated by ambition and an enthusiasm for innovative stage design, he questioned traditions and conventions. Backed by the ideals and ideas of the Russian Constructivists of the early 20th century, Kay avidly championed a fundamental change by setting out to pioneer three-dimensionally constructed sets - thus revolutionizing stage design for the ballet almost single-handed.
Kay's artistic contributions to the performing arts are well-represented and documented at national museums, state galleries, art libraries, theatre collections and archives globally. Public collections include: Victoria & Albert Museum Theatre Collections, London; Royal Opera House Collections, London; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; State Library of New South Wales, Mitchell Library, Sydney; Performing Arts Museum, Melbourne; Lipperheidesche Kostümbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna; University of Calgary, Library, Special Collections, Alberta, Canada; MacNay Museum, Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, San Antonio, Texas.
In November 2007, Live Performance Australia, the peak body for Australia's live entertainment and performing arts industry, posthumously selected Barry Kay as one of one hundred inductees, eighty of them theatre artists, in its newly established virtual Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is Live Performance Australia's way of paying tribute to a remarkable collection of people on the occasion of celebrating its 90th anniversary.
Frank van Straten OAM, theatre historian and founding director (1984-1993) of the Victorian Arts Centre's Performing Arts Museum in Melbourne, provided a short biography on each artist, constituting the corner stone of the Hall of Fame. (In 1993 the Victorian Arts Centre was renamed the Arts Centre, Melbourne.)
Barry Kay Archive
The Barry Kay Archive identifies itself as the patron institution honouring Barry Kay's achievements. Its primary purpose is to help maintain awareness and encourage appreciation of Kay and his creations. The Archive preserves, conserves and archives his works and represents a model project for digitizing an artistic theatre design estate. With its progressively expanding, illustrated internet presence, it is an invaluable online research facility on Kay's enormous artistic output, serving the academic world as much as the private sector and the humanities at large.
In November 2006, the National Library of Australia - an Australian government body bound by stringent selection criteria - posthumously honoured Barry Kay for his artistic achievements and identified the Barry Kay Archive for conserving, preserving and archiving Kay's creations, as well as for providing public online access to them - as: "Heritage of national significance with long-term research value".
As a result, the online Barry Kay Archive is now permanently integrated into the Library's database of PANDORA (Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia) - Australia's Web Archive - providing independent public internet access to the Barry Kay Archive via the Library's server in perpetuity.
As far as is known, the Barry Kay Archive is the world's only online archive exclusively dedicated to a stage and costume designer and his works.
Due to existing copyrights further information on Barry Kay and the Barry Kay Archive cannot be displayed here and is only accessible via the link provided. The online publication of the Barry Kay Archive is continuously expanding, displaying Kay's designs and an itemized biography.
Source: Barry Kay Archive
Language
English
Address
refer to website
Telephone & E-mail
refer to website
Additional Information
Related Domains
External Links
- PANDORA / National Library of Australia: Barry-Kay-Archive.org
- Intute: Arts and Humanities: Barry-Kay-Archive.org
- ARCHON Directory / National Register of Archives in the UK: Barry-Kay-Archive.org
- The Peter Darrell Trust: Barry-Kay-Archive.org
- SIBMAS / International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts: Barry-Kay-Archive.org
- Live Performance Australia / Hall of Fame: Biography about Barry Kay by Frank van Straten OAM
- Alexa: Barry-Kay-Archive.org
