Peace in Palaces

Looking at the marble palaces built by U.S. financial titans, Novelist Henry James once described Newport as a "breeding ground for white elephants." Some of them now loom chipped and sagging in the long grass, but they still make an imposing trunk-to-tail parade down and around Bellevue Avenue. Their gates are generally shut to the public, but last week from paintings on exhibition in a Manhattan gallery, the curious could get an idea of what the elephants' insides looked like.

The paintings were by a stage designer named Mstislav Dobujinsky. Dobujinsky, a dapper, silver-haired Lithuanian, has done ballet sets from Moscow to Manhattan--usually, as in his sets for Diaghilev's Ballet Russe, filled with backdrops of toppling, cubistic cities. Last summer Dobujinsky found peace from the pasteboard, fast-whirling world of the theater in Newport's piles. "They are part of American history," he said, "I am very proud that I could paint them."

Dobujinsky's Newport water colors looked like stage sets for a slow-motion ballet of ghosts in frock coats or lowcut, glittery gowns.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.