Rolf de Maré

Rolf de Maré (9 May 1888 – 28 April 1964), sometimes called Rolf de Mare, was a Swedish art collector and leader of the Ballets Suédois in Paris in 1920–25. In 1933 he founded the world's first museum for dance in Paris.

Rolf de Maré was born in in 1888 as the son of diplomat Henrik de Maré and sculptor Ellen Roosval von Hallwyl. In 1913 he made friends with post-impressionist painter Nils von Dardel who was not particularly well off, but imaginative and talented, while de Maré was enthusiastic and had money. Together they were a very fruitful duo and in 1920 they created Ballets Suédois at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. In the autumn of 1924 Giorgio de Chirico curated the scenography and costumes for Pirandello's La Giara.

In 1933, de Maré founded Les Archives internationales de la Danse (AID) in Paris — the world's first museum and research institute for dance. The Archive became a famous centre for studies in dance and visitors came from all over the world to see exhibitions or to study in its vast library. The dance center also published its own magazine and books, arranged lecture demonstrations in the building which de Maré had constructed for his dance centre.

After the World War the archives had grown too large for a private person to maintain, de Maré closed his business in Paris and donated parts of the collections — some 6,000 books, engravings and other items, all concerned mainly with Western dance — to the French government which placed them at the museum and library of the Paris Opera. However, the museum declined to accept two substantial elements of de Maré's collection: firstly, material from the Ballets Suédois, and secondly, the fruits of his expedition of exploration to Indonesia in 1936 — the first to have been undertaken with the purpose of documenting dance.

...
Wikipedia