Alexandre Iacovleff was a notable Russian émigré artist who received widespread recognition in Europe and America in the mid 1930s as a virtuosic draughtsman. Indeed, Iacovleff created a large number of portraits of his contemporaries which include the representatives of the cultural and artistic elite of the first wave of Russian emigration. His ballet series occupies an important space in his oeuvre, comprising portraits of dancers resplendent in their characters’ costumes. In 1936-1937 Iacovleff focused on the dancers of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, which was run by Sergei Diaghilev’s (1872-1929) successor, Colonel Vassily Voskresensky (1888-1951), a former officer of the Russian army who was most famously known by the pseudonym Wassily de Basil. Before his tenure at the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, de Basil had directed the troupe Russian Opera in Paris, in which Sandra (Aleksandra) Iacovleva (1889-1979), the artist’s younger sister, was a singer. It is no coincidence that Iacovleff was acquainted with many ballet dancers, drawing a number of them and even planning to publish an album of their portraits. Unfortunately his premature demise meant he was unable to realise this enterprise. Nowadays Iacovleff’s portraits are dispersed across the world in different collections and are still of significant art historical and cultural interest.
The present portrait depicts the ballerina Olga Morozova while she was dancing in Léonide Massine’s (1896-1979) production of Symphonie Fantastique, set to the music of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). The premiere of the production, which was staged by Wassily de Basil’s Ballets Russes, took place on 24 July 1926 at the Royal Opera House in London. Two years later Olga married Wassily de Basil. However, she continued to dance under her surname Morozova, and often danced alongside her older sister, Nina Vershinina (1909-1995), Léonide Massine’s muse, both of whom were sitters of Iacovleff. The Vershinina sisters were students of Olga Preobrazhenskaya (1871-1962) in Paris, the renowned prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, who in 1921 had emigrated from Russia. They began their careers on stage in Ida Rubinstein’s (1883-1960) troupe, with whom Iacovleff had collaborated in the early 1930s.
Subsequently, Olga Morozova’s portrait, executed with delicacy and tenderness, recalls her friends and collaborators who made up the great and good of the illustrious ballet and art worlds of the 20th century.
We are grateful to Elena Yakovleva, Doctor of Art History, Senior Researcher of the Russian Institute of Art History, St Petersburg for providing this catalogue note.