The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts celebrates the long and colorful career of costume designer Willa Kim in her first-ever major retrospective exhibition, The Wondrous Willa Kim: Costume Designs for Actors and Dancers. The exhibit just opened on February 23, 2023, at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Shelby Cullom Davis Museum, Vincent Astor Gallery located at Lincoln Center in NYC and will run through August 19, 2023.
The exhibit features an assortment of designs and costumes from her long and prolific career, including work from productions like Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies, The Will Rogers Follies, and her final Broadway show, Victor/Victoria starring Julie Andrews. Kim’s archive was acquired by the Library in 2017.
From her earliest designs to her very last production, Kim demonstrated her gift for creating whimsical costumes by using extraordinary combinations of color and texture. Born in 1917 to Korean immigrant parents, Kim began her professional life as a painter in Los Angeles, CA, where she grew up. After studying from what would later become CalArts, she found a job as an assistant to Barbara Karinska, working under Raoul Pène du Bois who designed costumes for the Ginger Rogers 1944 film Lady in the Dark.
Following her mentors to New York, Kim began designing costumes for Broadway productions, such as The Red Eye of Love, and Goodtime Charley, Song & Dance, Dancin’, Tommy Tune Tonite! She designed costumes for some of the leading choreographers and dancers, like Eliot Feld and Michael Smuin, and production companies like Ballet Hispánico and American Ballet Theatre, as well as opera performances, figure skaters, and even some film and TV productions. Kim was a close colleague of Eliot Feld’s – she designed costumes for more than 50 of his ballets. She even designed salad-themed dresses for a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The exhibition will feature designs alongside some of the costumes that showcase Kim’s extraordinary range and ingenuity.
The Wondrous Willa Kim is curated by Bobbi Owen, professor emerita of the Department of Dramatic Art at the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she taught costume history and design. Owen is the author of a monograph about Kim’s creative work published in 2005.
Learn More About Willa Kim
Bobbi Owen, the curator behind The Wondrous Willa Kim exhibition, presents a close examination of Willa Kim’s costumes in motion on April 17 at 6:00 p.m. In a free event at the Library for the Performing Arts, see Kim’s innovative designs made in New York, captured in performance footage from works preserved in the Library’s theatre and dance moving image archives. Owen will be joined by special guests from Kim’s life and career.
Sponsors
The Wondrous Willa Kim is made possible by the generosity of the Estate of Willa Kim.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the leadership support of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman. Additional support for exhibitions has been provided by Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg and the Miriam and Harold Steinberg Foundation.
