NEW YORK CITY.- Through paintings, photographs, and designs, Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer provides a multifaceted view of Rudolf Nureyev, one of ballet's rare superstars. Over 35 paintings and drawings of Nureyev by his friend, American artist James Browning Wyeth, plus more than 61 photographs and designs from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and a sampling of Nureyev's costumes are on display. The exhibition runs March 22 through May 25, 2002 in the Vincent Astor Gallery at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. Admission is free.
After New York, the exhibition will travel to the Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center in Rockland, Maine, where it will run from June 9, 2002 through January 5, 2003. It will then head to the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, from January 18 through May 18, 2003. Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer opened at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in February 2002.
Wyeth's portraits of Nureyev were inspired by the close friendship that developed between the two artists during the one year that Wyeth spent observing and painting the dancer backstage, in rehearsals, and in performances. Although Wyeth began working on the portraits in 1977, some of the works were only completed some eight years after Nureyev's death in 1993. Larger in scale and brighter in color than the 1977 works, these later paintings depict the consummate performer as he will be remembered – onstage in lavish costumes against dramatic backdrops.
The designs and photographs from the Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division, the world's largest and most comprehensive archival collection of dance materials, extend the scope of the exhibition. The black and white images, by such well-known dance photographers as Zoë Dominic, Herbert Migdoll, and Martha Swope, document Nureyev's roots in the classical ballet repertory and his expansion into works by such contemporary ballet choreographers as Frederick Ashton, Roland Petit, and Glen Tetley, and American modern dance creators Martha Graham, José Limón, and Paul Taylor. Also featured are original designs by Rouben Ter-Arutunian for Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire, the work that Nureyev was rehearsing when Wyeth began the series of paintings. These designs are from The Rouben Ter-Arutunian Collection, one of the major collections housed in the Dance Division of the Library. Nureyev's costumes from Giselle, Don Quixote, Raymonda, and Sleeping Beauty complete the exhibition.
According to Wyeth, Nureyev was one of his most difficult and demanding models, taking an active role in determining how his body, the instrument of the dancer, was to be presented. Over time, the painter and the dancer began to understand each other's art and the process became more of a collaborative effort. Wyeth was granted rare permission to observe and sketch Nureyev in his most revealing and intense moments – as he was preparing to take the stage. Wyeth recalled how the dancer, in the role of the moonstruck clown in Pierrot Lunaire, with his face covered in white paint and his eyes glowing, would immerse himself in the character to the exclusion of all else. "He would get into this frenzy … here was this silent figure in his white makeup with his hair flying. He was completely in his own world."
James Browning Wyeth left school in 1958 at the age of twelve to begin his artistic career. By 18, he had already achieved a measure of prominence, with his paintings hanging in the permanent collections of several notable museums and libraries. By 20, he had his first one-man show in New York and before the age of 35, he enjoyed a retrospective of his work at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia. Wyeth is perhaps best known for his sensitive and illuminating portraits with subjects ranging from a hermit in rural Pennsylvania (Portrait of Shorty), to Pop Art icon Andy Warhol (Portrait of Andy Warhol). Like a method actor, Wyeth spends as much time as possible with the subject of a portrait, "trying to get under his skin, trying to absorb his character by osmosis."
Rudolf Nureyev was one of the Soviet Union's most promising young stars when he defected in Paris during the 1961 Kirov Ballet tour of Western Europe. On the international stage, Nureyev's partnership with the Royal Ballet's Margot Fonteyn became one of ballet's legendary pairings, attracting new audiences to the art. With his talent and charisma, he helped revitalize twentieth century ballet, cutting through the traditions and prejudices by insisting on the widest possible choices of repertory and technique. He was the first major classical dancer to regularly work with modern dance choreographers. Nureyev danced as a guest artist with the leading international dance companies and set and choreographed ballet productions for a number of companies. He also developed seasons of programs called Nureyev and Friends, featuring a mix of European contemporary ballets and American modern dance works. From 1983 to 1989, he served as artistic director of the Paris Opéra Ballet. Nureyev died on January 6, 1993 in Paris. In 1999, the Rudolf Nureyev Collection, an archive of his videotapes, films, and audiotapes, was donated to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts by the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation and the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation.
Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer is co-curated by Lauren Smith, Assistant Curator and Conservator of the Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center, and by Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, The Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg Curator of Exhibitions, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
