Saturday, September 30, 2023

Dance (couples)

Anonymous German Woodworker
Dancing Couple
ca. 1850-1900
painted wood
(spinning carousel ornament)
Museum of Saxon Folk Art, Dresden

Diane Arbus
The Junior Interstate Ballroom Dance Champions, Yonkers N.Y.
1963
gelatin silver print
Milwaukee Art Museum

André Derain
At the Suresnes Ball
1903
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Museum of Art

Howard Kanovitz
Dance
1965-66
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Robert Mapplethorpe
Dance
1990
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Harry Sternberg
The Dance
1932
etching and aquatint
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Thomas Miles Richardson the Younger
A Spanish Dance
1850
drawing, with watercolor
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Charles Williams
Waltzing in Courtship
1815
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Judith Spector Clancy
Ballet
ca. 1945
gouache on paper
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Laurie Wilson
Ballet Couple against Green Curtain
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Laurie Wilson
Ballet Couple in Australian Landscape
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Raoul Dufy
La Danse (Le voyage aux îles)
1910
woodcut
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Eugène-Louis Lami
Alfred de Musset dancing with a Partner
1828
drawing, with watercolor
Morgan Library, New York

Laurie & Whittle
Follies of the Day
1798
hand-colored mezzotint with etching
British Museum

Jacques Lowe
Young People Dancing 
1959
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Cornel Lucas
Robert Helpmann and Moira Shearer
1947
bromide print
National Portrait Gallery, London

Maurice Ravel

That in the living, the fastening
seashells onto skyscrapers, syncopating
the lozenges, oh beauty! indestructible
you have become by his hands.

The harmful distances of silence
somewhat abated, he can finally rest
in your brain companioned by tempestuous 
thoughts, walking him up and down,

waltzing him round, always with
love and discrimination self-taught.
Removing the silencer from the gun
he shot agates into your eyes, fell

upon the weak cries of infants
with leonine roars from backyard fences
and did not falter before the bolero's
dumb desert. His wrist dripped oases.

If, at the untellable hour of quiet,
he had not put fingernail to
waterglass, what trees we'd've
turned to! fugitive, quivering.

– Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)

Friday, September 29, 2023

Dance (posters)

Strobridge Lithographing Company
The Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth
Columbus and the Discovery of America
Grand Romantic and Picturesque Ballet

1891
lithograph (poster)
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Strobridge Lithographing Company
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows
Bears That Dance

ca. 1918-20
lithograph (poster)
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

E. McKnight Kauffer (designer)
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
The Greatest Show on Earth
Elephant Ballet staged by George Balanchine

1942
lithograph (poster)
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Ferd. Mayer & Sons (New York)
Ballet Scene
1870
lithograph (poster)
Library of Congress, Washington DC

Jean Cocteau
Ballets Russes
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
(Vaslav Nijinsky in Spectre de la Rose)

1913
lithograph (poster)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Armin Hofmann
Giselle
Basler Freilichtspiele

1959
lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Designer
Festival of American Dance
Laguna Beach High School Auditorium

1937
screenprint (poster)
Library of Congress, Washington DC

Max Bill
Tanzstudio Wulff, Basel
1931
poster
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paul Rand
Dancer
1939
lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Ballets Russes de Diaghilew
(reproducing Picasso costume design)
1939
lithograph (poster)
Princeton University Art Museum

Anthony Crickmay
David Hughes
London Contemporary Dance Theatre

1990
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Max Waldman
Mikhail Baryshnikov
1975
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous Designer
Nureyev
ca. 1975
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous Designer
Rudolf Nureyev
Don Quixote, Zürich Ballet

1983
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Atsushi Iijima
Rudolf Nureyev
Manfred, Zürich Ballet
1983
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Jürgen Vollmer
Nureyev in Paris
Le Jeune Homme et La Mort
1966
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Noir Cacadou, or The Fatal Music of War

We were standing around
with guitars and mandolins
when the war ended. Yes.

The sea was calm and pale.
Almost polite. Whatever
had it meant to us, what

will you mean to me, does
nothing end? It was dull
as a spider's banquet. Just

twangings and a wave or 
two. "Japee!" someone called
through his high red beard

and the Admiral said "Men
you were admirable." We
loved him as I love you. More,

and it meant nothing, simply
a remark after another war. 
We were gay, we had won, we

dressed in stovepipes and 
danced the measure of being
pleased with ourselves. That is

why I want you, must have
you. Draw the black line where
you want it, like a musical

string, it will be love and lovely
and level as the horizon from
our exotic and dancing deck.

Your beard will grow very
fast at sea and you will
not know what instrument

you are patting. It will mean
a lot to you until the lines
stop vibrating and become

a thin black cry that ends. 
But no admiral will speak
yet, we've a lot to do first.

I'm not ready for my costume.
We'll beat the gong, yell
out our uneatable tongues,

wallow lasciviously in arms.
You'll see how easily we
provoke the waves, although

the sextant shakes and positions
get difficult. And every dawn
the whine will go up, the black

look that means love is near.
We'll draw our own lines
and be what the sea tries

to talk about. Then afterwards
we'll help each other dress, lay
flowers at the dummy's feet.

– Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Dance (posters)

Anonymous British Designer
Béjart Ballet of the 20th Century
at the London Coliseum

1977
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous British Designer
Béjart Ballet of the 20th Century
at the London Coliseum

1980
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anthony Crickmay
Ballet Rambert, London
1976
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous British Designer
Ballet Rambert, Theatre Royal, Bath
1991
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Tim Moore Associates
Ballet Rambert
at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London

1986
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Tim Moore Associates
Pilobolus
at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London
1989
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Michael Curtis Gross
Ballet Nacional de Cuba
International Festival of the Arts, Mexico City

1968
poster
Art Institute of Chicago

Ricardo Reymena
Ballet Nacional de Cuba
1983
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Dieter Kortegast
Ballett Staatstheater Braunschweig
1968
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous British Designer
DV8 Physical Theatre
Royal Court Theatre, London

1992
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous American Designer
Christine Dakin as Phaedra
Martha Graham Dance Company

2003
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Robert Longo
Tenth Anniversary Benefit
for The Kitchen

1981
screenprint (poster)
Princeton University Art Museum

Dan Esgro (photographer) and Russ Almquist (designer)
Bella Lewitsky Dance Company
ca. 1976-79
poster
Library of Congress, Washington DC

Bill Cooper
Peter Schaufuss and Susan Hogard
London Festival Ballet

1988
poster
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Per Arnoldi
Dance
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

ca. 1970
lithograph (poster)
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Edward Gorey
New York City Ballet
1974-75
lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Round Objects

Stolen into by vended guises
the marmalade jar swells and,
withdrawn, becomes a lark. There

in the field it skills with flowers
and a traffic painted like the sun
rolls towards our vise over clovers,

fourleaf, tripe. In Jamaica, was it?
a turbine full of oranges, land for
much ado. The jazz was simple, and

only in our heavy language furrows
of shank must its dart assume
pre-Adamic clarity. Let us

rest in the grasses, covered with scented 
bugs. Sand admires the perfect vamp
and lip, the tractor reels the sum.

– Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Trees (as incidental props)

Cecil Beaton
Portrait of Princess Margaret
1955
gelatin silver print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Gwen Raverat
Dancing Boys
ca. 1920
woodcut
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Charles Yardley Turner
Young Woman picking Blossoms from a Tree
ca. 1915
etching
Yale University Art Gallery

Friedrich Preller the Younger
Jason seizing the Golden Fleece
ca. 1875
watercolor
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Arthur Pond after Salvator Rosa
Classical Scene with Seated Man
gesturing toward a Tree

1740
engraving
Yale Center for British Art

Luca Cambiaso
Venus dissuading Adonis from the Chase
before 1585
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

attributed to Adam Colonia
Four Figures gathered near a Tree
before 1685
drawing, with watercolor
Yale University Art Gallery

Bernard Picart
Sculpted Female Figure on Base
suspended from a Tree

1726
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Bernard Picart
Sculpted Figure of Angel
suspended from a Tree

1726
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Bernard Picart
Sculpted Male Figure on Base
suspended from a Tree

1726
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Albrecht Dürer
Holy Family with St Anne and St Joachim
1511
woodcut
Yale University Art Gallery

Hendrik Goltzius
Holy Family under a Cherry Tree
(Rest on the Flight into Egypt)

1589
engraving
Yale University Art Gallery

Jacob Binck
Adam
1526
engraving
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Gérard de Lairesse
Eve tempting Adam
ca. 1680
engraving
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Paul Wunderlich
Adam with the Tree of Knowledge
1970
lithograph
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Artur Volkmann (sculptor)
and Hermann Prell (painter)
Eve
1886-87
painted marble relief
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, as Perdita

The delicate girl was eager to air
her virgin flower-de-luce held tight held
high in her fist as a poodle's nose, rare
as a garnished mushroom on a jewelled
Stuart's table. The startling innocence
of her eyes made the sky a rumpled bed,
her white skin was refined as th' excremence 
of that delicious bird: the dove. Like Ed
walks o'er fresh field in Scottish tweed, her stroll
widened the sense of heather. Negligence
too, was her tour de force. A barcarolle
restored to each heart her adolescence:
     caught in her eyes the late years wept, seeing
     th' impossibility of her being. 

– Frank O'Hara (killed by a car at age 40 in 1966)