For this body of work, Hughes looks to Russian born, French artist and designer, Erté (Romaine de Tirtoff, 1892 – 1990) whose work is emblematic of the Art Deco style, for a celebration of girlhood and femininity and a playful reimagining of his work.

While Hughes’ earlier confrontations with Ukiyo-e, de Kooning, Kirchner, and Freud, follow this strategy, with Erté there is a different tenor to the visual dialogue she enacts, one that is unambiguously celebratory but no less critical. This dialogue returns us to some of her earliest work and makes themes and outcomes across her practice more apparent and readable. Her approach continues to underscore the construction of gender through representation and the role of key moments in art in our understanding the placement of women in broader culture and history. Even more fundamentally, An Entertainment takes us to her abiding insistence that beautiful forms can combine with critical content and be a force in contemporary painting. This risks being heavy and laboured but in Hughes’ hands it is playful, engaging, and deliciously disorienting. While Hughes responds to multiple and diverse sources of Erté’s copious representations of women in fashion and theatre and beyond, I’m struck by the influence of Ermyntrude and Esmerelda. Hughes’ copy of the book was a childhood gift from a grandmother oblivious to its racy content. It takes the form of a correspondence between two seventeen-year-old girls, one in the city and one in the country, exploring their sexuality and trying to understand the confounding connections between love, sex, gender, baby making and marriage. Strachey’s story relies on the girls’ innocence and daring in equal measure. His adult male account of the sexual preoccupations and experiences of two girls, as if leaning over their shoulders as they write their titillating reports, can be irksome. However, Strachey’s contempt for the sexual mores of his time, when paired with the diversity of Ermyntrude and Esmerelda’s catalogue of sexual possibilities and Erté’s meticulous illustrations shift this unease to the often-complex questions of sexual identity we continue to face. - Rosemary Hawker