Barry Kay

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Barry Kay (born Melbourne 1932 – died London 1985), trained at the Académie Julian in Paris, was a stage and costume designer. In the course of his career, lasting almost four decades, he designed for the ballet, drama and opera alike, working with established directors and choreographers at major theatres and opera houses and their companies worldwide. Kay's emphasis, however, lay in pioneering three-dimensional stage set designs for the ballet. By breaking away from the traditional use of "flat wings" scenery he expanded on the revolutionary ideas of the Russian Constructivists and the Italian Futurists for theatre design in the early part of the 20th century.

Among others, Kay designed for the choreographers Walter Gore, Peter Darrell, Kenneth MacMillan and Rudolf Nureyev and for ballet companies such as 'Western Theatre Ballet', 'The Royal Ballet', 'The Australian Ballet','The Ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin' [¹], 'The Stuttgart Ballet', 'The Vienna State Opera Ballet' and 'American Ballet Theater'. Later in his career he also became a photographer of subjects with socio-anthropological contents.

[¹] Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the German Reunification, the ballet companies of both the 'Deutsche Oper' (formerly West Berlin) and the 'Staatsoper' (formerly East Berlin) have merged on January 1, 2004, operating at both opera houses under the new name of 'Staatsballett Berlin'.

[edit] Recognition by the National Library of Australia

In November 2006, the National Library of Australia - an Australian government body bound by stringent selection criteria - identified Barry Kay posthumously for his artistic achievements, as well as the Barry Kay Archive for conserving, preserving and archiving Kay's creations, and 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.