Background
I painted Anna (2017) to honour one of the most influential ballerinas of the late 19th and early 20th Century.
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) was a woman who defied social convention. She was atypically tall for a ballerina and cursed with extremely arched feet and weak ankles.
Yet, she persevered with her craft and developed her own inimitable style of dance. She believed that hard work would transform her talent to genius and this was reflected in her performance.
Anna Pavlova was an independent and strong woman. In 1912, she danced with Michael Mordkin in the first Royal Variety Performance. During the curtain call, she slapped him across the face for receiving more applause from the audience than she did. In any case, the following year she resigned from the Russian Imperial Ballet and founded her own company.
New Life
She was the first ballerina to tour the world, at a time when air travel was not readily available. Consequently, Anna brought ballet to all corners of the globe and inspired a generation of new dancers.
However, her name lives on in the renowned dessert, Pavlova, which was created to celebrate her tour of Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s.
I was inspired to paint Anna (2017) after seeing her in a black and white postcard from 1909. She was wearing a traditional, Russian costume, which I found striking. I wanted to breathe new life into the image with the addition of colour.
Painting Anna (2017) was a powerful experience and one that taught me about dance, costume and music. As I painted, I listened to the score of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and occasionally, Giselle. As a result, the beauty and power of the music was reflected in the final image.
In Anna (2017), I captured the innate grace and elegance of Anna Pavlova as a dancer and performer. Yet I also wanted to show the meticulous craftsmanship involved in producing the costume.
The result is a painting that brings to life the beauty and the grandeur of ballet at the turn of the 20th Century. Anna (2017) pays homage to a woman who made dance her life and allows a new generation to be inspired by her story.