Zinaida Serebriakova’s Ballet Series

I am not entirely sure how Zinaida Serebriakova got involved in her ballet series. Was she given a commission? Or was it owing to the interest of her neighbours, the ballet critics D. D. Bushen and S. R. Ernst? Or did it all start when her daughter Tata (Tatyana) began to train for the ballet herself in the winter of 1921? In January 1922, her mother wrote to her brother: ‘This winter, we plunged into the world of ballet. Zina draws the dancers thrice a week, one of the younger ballerinas posing for her; Tatochka twice a week at the ballet school; then Zina goes with her sketch-book behind the scenes to capture the various forms of ballet. All this because our tenants are obsessed with the ballet, and twice a week – Wednesdays and Sundays – they always go to the ballet.’

That same year, several of Zinaida’s paintings appeared: ‘Portrait of a ballerina, L. A. Ivanova performing a pas de trois from N. Cherepnin’s “Le Pavillion d’Armide”‘, ‘Portrait of M. H. Frangopulo’, ‘Portrait of E. A. Svekis’, ‘Portrait of a ballerina, A. L. Danilova, in costume for N. Cherepnin’s “Le Pavillon d’Armide”‘. Younger dancers were portrayed in costumes of the prima ballerinas of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (Svekis), ‘Carnival’ (Frangopulo), and as Ivanova and Danilova from “Le Pavillon d’Armide”. In keeping with their character, the ballerinas posed standing or sitting as though preparing for their upcoming role in the ballet. For the most part very beautiful and svelte, they proudly held their heads high. These were dancers already experienced in the glory of success, plunged in the excitement of the theatrical scenes, graceful and feminine, fully aware of their maiden charms. They are calm and a little shy. Restrained and refined in her costume (designed by Benois) of white, green and purple for the ballet “Le Pavillon d’Armide” is  Alexandra Davidova (then soloist of the Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet). Gazing upon the viewer with her huge brown eyes, with curiosity and silent questioning is Lydia Ivanova in a lush red dress and adorned with large pearls (also designed from a sketch by Benois). Smouldering with passion is Marietta Frangopulo in a wonderful Oriental robe. With a three-quarter turn of his head and parted lips is the future Balanchine in a suit of Bacchus from Glazunov’s ballet “The Seasons.” This was the only portrait of a man in that series on the ballet.

These were mainly works in pastel. As Tatyana later wrote, they were executed in Zinaida’s unique manner, with overlays and light and shade and feathering. ‘In their density of colour and pattern, their severity and brevity,  they are not inferior her other works that were accomplished in oils.’

All these portraits were displayed at the 1922 ‘World of Arts’ exhibition in St. Petersburg. They resonated widely. The critic Somov wrote in his diary, ‘I tried to persuade Zina to make a big ballet painting based on the studies I had seen.’ In the years following, Zinaida created several more portraits and figuratives pieces in the series. The ballerina E. N. Geidenreich appeared several times; her most expressive portrait is ‘Portrait of E. N. Geidenreich in a white wig (1924)’ where she appears mature, full of wisdom and refinement. The series of figurative works with young ballerinas in their costumes from various performances were somewhat monotone in their light backgrounds, despite rather sophisticated harmonies of colour. Zinaida apparently had deep empathy for the inner richness of Valentina Ivanova, whom she painted several times, aiming to provide to her series the decisiveness of portraiture. Meanwhile, the portraits of Svekis were interpretations of scenes in the dressing room, but they were executed in Zinaida’s studio off her sketches.

Her daughter Tatyana recalled: “At home we were often visited by dancers. My mother bought tutus, bodices, vests, shoes – the full attire of a ballerina, and she would wear it, standing in front of a mirror and posing as she imagined her compositions. She loved and appreciated Degas, but in her works devoted to the ballet, she went her own way, and saw the world with her own eyes.”

The last pastels in their motifs and structure are reminiscent of the genre of ballet works by Edgar Degas or Konstantin Somov. It is characteristic of Zinaida that she did not paint scenes of balletic action or ballerinas learning their steps, or mise-en-scenes with standing or seated figures in their tutus (as did Degas). Her paintings concentrated instead on the relatively quiet periods in the changing room, prior to the energetic explosion on stage, when the performers are talking softly to each other, repeating a step, or getting dressed. She captured the moment that the young ballerinas transformed themselves, with their makeup and costumes, into the iconic images of swans, snowflakes, sylphs. Occasionally she shows a group of dancers in the wings, awaiting their turn to enter the stage.

The representations of the ‘Dancers in Blue’ show up the differences in the styles of the two masters, Degas and Serebriakova, both such great lovers of the ballet. While the French Impressionist was primarily concerned with the beauty of human forms and their interactions in dance, the Russian painter was interested in the richness of the atmosphere surrounding a theatrical performance. Compare Degas’s 1899 work ‘Blue Dancers’ with Serebriakova’s ‘Ballerina in Blue’ of 1922. Serebriakova is able to extract masterfully all the possibilities of oil paints and pastels, which allowed her to enact the subtleties of colour and harmony. Her ‘Snowflakes from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker” (1923) wonderfully illustrates this possibility in her pastels, while her oils focus on the beauty of the young dancers’ bodies in ‘Snowflakes in the changing room. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker”. As a rule, Zinaida sketched over two days her subjects in the changing room of the Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, and then retired to her studio to work on her composition, off and on verifying to herself the poses and postures of her favourite heroines.

Scenes from dance and ballet have been set and accomplished by many artists down the ages, each doing them in their own style. Zinaida Serebriakova concentrated on the lives of famous and not-so-famous ballerinas in their changing rooms.

‘I have never thought about the ‘style’ of my oeuvre, but I think that my fascination with the great masters has, of course, had an immense impact on me,’ wrote Zinaida Serebriakova.

Portrait of M. H. Frangolupo (1922)

Portrait of A. D. Danilova in costume. Le Pavillon d’Armide (1922).

Portrait of I. A. Ivanova (1922)

Portrait of E. A. Svekis in costume (1923)

Portrait of E. N. Geidenreich in red (1923)

Portrait of E. N. Geidenreich in Blue (1923)

Portrait of E. N. Geidenreich in white wig (1924)

Portrait of V. K. Ivanova in Spanish costume (1924)

Portrait of V. Ivanova in Spanish costume (1924)

In the changing room. Swan Lake. (1924)

Blue Dancers, by Edgar Degas (1899)

Ballerinas in blue (1922)

In the changing room (Bolshoi) (‘Pharaoh’s Daughter) (1922)

In the changing room. Snowflakes (from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker) (1923)

In the changing room (1923)

Ballet les sylphides (Chopiniana) (1924)

In the changing room (1924)

In the changing room (1922-1924)

Portrait of Murielle Belmondo. (1962)

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Zinaida Serebriakova’s Extended Family

The Bather by Zinaida Serebriakova (1911) (Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg)

It is true that Serebriakova’s sister modelled for her famous Bathers of 1911; however, it sometimes appears as if all the nudes of her multiple Bathhouses were painted after her sisters or perhaps the artist herself. Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, writing about this feature of Serebriakova’s works, noted that even in the artist’s portraits “there is a lot of grace and artistic revelation but… no resemblance [of the model]. In general, her portraits bear little resemblance to the sitters. Rather, all images of women resemble the artist herself. Well, why should it be otherwise?”

From: Exhibition catalogue, Zinaida Serebriakova, Syseca, France, 1995, p. 13, illustrated.

Ekaterina Lansere (the artist's mother) by Zinaida Serebriakova (Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg)

Ekaterina Zelenkova (the artist's sister) by Zinaida Serebriakova (1913)

M. E. Solntseva (the artist's sister), by Zinaida Serebriakova (1914)

Evgeniy Lansere (the artist's brother), by Zinaida Serebriakova (1915)

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Husband: Boris Serebriakov

Boris Serebriakov was Zinaida’s cousin. They married in 1905. He died of typhus in 1919.

Boris Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1904)

Boris Serebriakov at Neskuchnoye Estate, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1905) (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow)

Boris Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1908)

Boris Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1913)

Boris Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1915)

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Children

In the Nursery, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1913)

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On the Terrace in Kharkov, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1919)

House of Cards by Zinaida Serebriakova (1919)

Two years after [the October Revolution, Zinaida’s] husband died, leaving her and their four children with no money. Add to that the fact that her mother was sick and the family money was also gone. Those were harsh times for Serebryakova, they were all starving and had no financial resources for anything. She had to give up oil painting, as she couldn’t afford to buy the materials. This is when she started drawing with charcoal and pencil. Many critics say that those paintings have a very sad and tragic undertone. One of the most famous ones became the House of Cards, which shows her four children playing cards.

Marina Kosareva in Out and About on the Voice of Russia, Dec 6, 2010.

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Daughters: Tatyana and Ekaterina

The artist’s daughters Tatyana (1912 – 1989) and Ekaterina (1913 – )

'Tata and Katya by the mirror' by Zinaida Serebriakova (1917)

Tata and Katya, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1917)

Katyusha, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1920)

Tata in harlequin costume, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1921)

Katya in Blue by the Christmas Tree, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922)

Nude of a girl, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922) (Peterhof, St. Petersburg)

Girls at the Piano, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922)

Katyusha on a blanket, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923) (National Palace and Park Museum Peterhof, St. Petersburg)

Katya in the kitchen, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923)

Katya at the kitchen table, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923)

Katya and still life, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923)

Tata with Vegetables, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923) (L.G. Lotsianskiy Collection, St. Petersburg)

Tata in dance costume, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1924)

Portrait of Ekaterina Serebriakova, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1928) (Hampshire College Art Gallery)

Ekaterina Serebriakova, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1929)

Katya on the Terrace at Collioure, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1930)

Portrait of Katya, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1933)

Katya asleep, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1945)

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Sons: Evgeniy and Alexander

Evgeniy (1906 – 1991) was the eldest child of Zinaida and Boris Serebriakov. Their second son was Alexander (1907 – 1995).

Evgeniy Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1908)

Eugene Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1909)

Alexander Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1910)

Evgeniy Serebriakov by Zinaida Serebriakova (1917)

Boys in Sailor's Striped Suits, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1919)

Alexander Serebriakov studying an album, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922)

Alexander Serebriakov, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1925)

Alexander Serebriakov, by Zinaida Serebriakov (1938)

Alexander reading a book, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1946)

Alexander in carnival costume, by Zinaida Serebriakova (1952)

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Morocco: Cityscapes

Marrakech Bazaar. (1928)

Walls and Towers of the town. Marrakech. (1928)

View from the terrace of the Atlas Mountains. Marrakech. (1928)

Marrakech. (1932)

Camels. Marrakech. (1932)

Fez. Morocco. (1932)

Fez. Bab Dekaken. (1932)

Rooftops of Sefrou. Morocco. (1932)

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Morocco: Portraits

Zinaida Serebriakova had the opportunity to visit Morocco several times in her life. Her first visit was in 1928, under the aegis of the Belgian baron de Brouwer who owned several plantations in that country. He had seen her work at that year’s  International Exhibition in Brussels, and commissioned her to do portraits of his family, and encouraged her to travel to Morocco. For the most part, she appears to have stayed in Marrakech, although she did take trips to Fez and other parts.

She was endlessly fascinated with Morocco. In one of her letters, she wrote: “I am extremely amazed at all this. At the costumes of various colors and all races of men mingled here – negroes, Arabs, Mongols, Jews (so biblical!). I am so dazed from the novelty of impressions that I cannot decide what and how to draw. “

Illuminated by the sun. Marrakech. (1928)

Young man, Morocco. (1928)

Moroccan woman in white (1928)

Young negro children. Marrakech. (1928)

Arab and Negro Musicians. Marrakech. (1928)

Musician boy. Marrakech. (1928)

Figures in the doorway. Marrakech. (1928)

In the courtyard. Marrakech. (1928)

Woman raising her veil. Marrakech. (1928)

Admittedly, the commissions weren’t lucrative enough, as most of the money went to pay Zinaida’s models. ‘As soon as you sit to draw the women walk away – Arabs don’t wish to be drawn, so they immediately close up their shops or charge up to 10 or 20 francs for tea an hour!’ she wrote despairingly. She did, however, return to Paris with a treasure-trove of artworks, comprising still lifes, portraits and cityscapes, much to the delight and admiration of the Parisians. To this day in Marrakech one finds the streamlined minarets and green domes and colourful water-carriers and the pink and white cubes of Arab houses, none of which escaped the sharp eye of Serebriakova.

Reclining woman. (Etude de femme Hadija) Marrakech. (1932)

Reclining nude in pink. Marrakech. (1932)

Sleeping nude. Marrakech. (1932)

Girl from Marrakech. (1932)

Resting Negress. Marrakech. (1928)

As a painter of nudes, Zinaida found it difficult to find models in Morocco, Islam’s prohibition against exposing the body working against her. ‘He (Brouwer) wants nude paintings of the lovely native women, but it’s a fantasy hardly worth dreaming about – even in their veils which cover everything but their eyes nobody will pose for me. There is no question of a nude,’ Serebriakova wrote. Still, in 1932, she was delighted to be able to paint a Berber woman with gold bracelets, reclining with her breasts exposed. The delicacy of Serebriakova’s work is exemplified in this pastel, so accurately does it capture the essential humanity of the subject from the ‘land of the setting sun’ as the Arabs called the country.

Moroccan woman. Marrakech. (1932)

Water carrier. Marrakech. (1932)

Two women. Marrakech. (1932)

Jewess in Sefrou. Morocco. (1932)

Moroccan woman in pink dress. Marrakech. (1932)

Man in green. Marrakech. (1932)

Man in blue. Marrakech. (1932)

Young woman in profile. Marrakech. (1932)

Young man. Marrakech. (1932)

Thoughtful man in blue. Marrakech. (1932)

Arab on a donkey. Fez. (1932)

The famous art critic Alexander Benois was enthusiastic about his niece’s work. It is a fascinating series of studies, he wrote, capturing so completely the essence of the East. He marvelled at the bazars; the people appear so lifelike, he said, that were one to meet them, one would recognise them at once.

Her Moroccan series comprised over two thirds of her 1932 solo exhibition at the Galerie Charpentier which was received by the critics very positively. Konstantin Somov enthused: .”I went to Serebriakova’s exhibition… What a marvellous artist she is!’ .(Zinaida Serebriakova, Letters, contemporaries on the artist. Moskva, Izobrazitelnoe Iskusstvo, 1987, p.92). The Paris art critic Camille Mauclair praised her depictions of the Orient for including “none of those brash dolls of the souq that Matisse called ‘odalisques”. Indeed, the offered lot exemplifies the contemplative element underlying the series which allowed Serebriakova to avoid Oriental cliches of ‘the Other’. Her nudes ‘are truly flesh of our flesh’ wrote Benois, ‘They have that grace, that luxuriousness, that element of proximity and domesticity of Eros, which is more alluring, delicate and at times more artful and dangerous than that which Gaugin captured in Tahiti.’

[From Sotheby’s Russian Art Evening Sale, 30 Nov 2009.]

Zinaida Serebriakova: Self Portraits

Self Portrait (1907) by Zinaida Serebriakova

At The Dressing Table (Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova) (1909) (Tretyakov Art Gallery, Moscow)

A viewer like her friend in the World of Art, the painter and critic Alexandre Benois (Aleksandr Benua, 1870-1960), one of its founding fathers, recognized it as a self-portrait and discussed it as such in his review of the seventh exhibit of the Union of Russian Artists in 1910. But Serebriakova never identified it in that way, perhaps (and this is pure speculation) because she knew how radical it was. Here to be sure is the pose we can observe in hundreds of self-portraits, but the mirror is not some abstraction, but the very “real” mirror of her dressing table … It reflects the artist’s bedroom, the objects on the vanity – hairpins, perfume bottles, jewelry, makeup – and the artist herself, shoulder seductively bared, with comb, not brush, in hand. We see not the palette and brushes with which the painter “makes up” her image on the canvas, but the makeup she uses every day to present herself to the world, a clever “baring of the device” of the self-portrait, to borrow Shklovsky’s famous formulation.

Judith Ryan, Alfred Thomas (ed.), Cultures of forgery: making nations, making selves, Routledge, New York, 2003.

Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova (1911). Tula Museum of Fine Arts.

In Pierrot Costume (Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova) (1911) (Odessa Museum of Art)

Self Portrait with Scarf by Zinaida Serebriakova (1911) (Collection of I. S. Silbershtein)

Girl with Candle - Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova (1911) (Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg)

Self Portrait in Red by Zinaida Serebriakova (1921)

Self Portrait with Daughters by Zinaida Serebriakova (1921) (Rybinsk History and Art Museum)

«Автопортрет с дочерьми». Выписаны с легкостью, как по волшебству, только головы матери и двух девочек, прильнувших к ней, улучив момент, когда она в рабочей блузе с кистями в руках сделала паузу в работе, и они предстали на миг в зеркале. Выписаны волосы, лица, глаза, руки – нельзя сказать тщательно, но гладко, с полным впечатлением живых лиц, как у старых мастеров, а одежда обозначена мазками и даже небрежно, как и фон, мол, пусть здесь будет, как ныне пишут, здесь неважно.

“Зинаида Серебрякова. Автопортрет с дочерьми. Описание одной картины.“, Феномен, № 2(6) Апрель-июнь 2008 года.

Self Portrait in White Blouse by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922)

Self Portrait in Blue by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922)

Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova (1924) (Kiev State Museum of Russian Art)

Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova (1930)

Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova (1946)

Self Portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova (1956) (Tula Regional Museum of Art)

Zinaida Serebriakova’s Belgian Oeuvre

As we saw in an earlier post, Zinaida Serebriakova had been commissioned with the creation of painted panels for the Belgian baron de Brouwer’s palace at Ville-Pommerœul near Mons. The discovery of these panels, long thought lost, was due to the Russian researcher N. A. Avdyusheva-Lecomte.

Usually, a solid monograph on an artist carries more weight than a journal article of two or three pages. But in the case of Zinaida Serebriakova, the fate of some of her artistic heritage lay in a paper published in a journal of scholarly articles collected by the Pskov Reserve Museum in 2001. The most important source of information about an artist’s works are from archival documents: in Serebriakova’s case, this turned out to be her own correspondence. In 1964, in a letter to A. N. Savinov, Serebriakova described her Parisian work, and discussed her acquaintance with the Belgian baron. Zinaida had executed several portraits of his wife and daughters, then travelled to Morocco where he owned extensive plantations. Next, she wrote, she was working on decorative panels for a new house that de Brouwer was building.

“The paintings consist of decorative maps in the style of XVIII century, executed in monochrome (these were done by my son). I drew the motives in the corners and backgrounds: the four seasons (summer with sheaves of grass, spring with flowers, and so on) and four figures to stand in the niches of another wall. I painted all this in Paris, and, unfortunately, didn’t see how it all appeared on the walls, as the house was not quite ready and was uninhabited… During the war, the fighting passed through the area, and the de Brouwer mansion was destroyed.”

All this was fairly well known and documented, and, given that during the World War II, so much of the artistic heritage had been destroyed, nobody doubted Serebriakova’s words. One of the researchers of the Russian artistic diaspora, T. A. Galeeva, suggested to her colleague N. A. Avdyusheva-Lecomte, who lives in Belgium, to look for the house where Serebriakova’s paintings had once been. Surprisingly, such a house was indeed found, with preserved murals. The house had changed ownership, and the new owners had no idea that the murals had been executed by a famous Russian artist. They thought the works were by some unknown Flemish artist. For nearly 70 years, the murals had decorated the house. The de Brouwer family owned several houses, and at the time of the war, another of them, ‘Frigate’, had been ruined. But Manoir du Relais, with its pictures, had survived, and had been sold immediately after the war. Since its construction, it had hardly had any repairs, and the panels needed careful reconstruction and renovation. N. A. Avdyusheva-Lecomte spoke at various conferences, drawing attention to the state of the panels, addressed herself to various bodies to prevent the irreversible degradation of Serebriakova’s work.

And so the Russian Museum announced the exhibition titled ‘Zinaida Serebriakova: Nudes.’ All ten of her panels are on display, reproducing the Manoir’s ‘Renaissance’ hall. Four of them depict the career of de Brouwer, and originally were placed between the windows.

Mural decorations for Manoir du Relais. Art. Jurisprudence. Zinaida Serebriakova (1936-1937)

As de Brouwer was a lawyer, one panel depicts ‘Jurisprudence.’ The image of justice is shown with a balance, as in the works of art of other masters. She is shown with rolls of paper, a tablet, while books and balances lie at her feet.

The patron was interested in art, so ‘Art’ became the theme of the second panel. A young girl is depicted reading a book, while beneath her are a palette, a mask and brushes.

Mural decorations for Manoir du Relais. Light. Flora. Zinaida Serebriakova (1936-1937)

In the third panel was painted ‘Flora.’ de Brouwer loved nature and he owned plantations in Morocco. The theme of fertility is personified by a woman holding a basket, from which she casts flowers about her.

The composition ‘Light’ completes the vertical panels. de Brouwer was a director of gas and electric power plants. The panel shows a woman with a torch with her back to the viewer. In all the panels, the same model had been used – Zinaida’s daughter Ekaterina.

The horizontal panel at the top of the side walls were done jointly with her son, Alexander. The painting comprises two elements. The first is an oval roundel with baroque embellishments, with maps (painted by Alexander). At the corner of the panel is a half-seated figure of a woman (painted by Zinaida). Serebriakova called this panel ‘Seasons’, and three of the girls are depicted holding wheat ears, while the fourth holds a jug. At the exhibition, these received new titles: Morocco, Flanders, India, and Patagonia.

Allegory of Summer. Panel. Manoir du Relais. Belgium (1936-1937).

[Translated from ‘Nudes of Zinaida Serebriakova at the Russian Museum‘, 2007.]

See also: Nadezhda Tregub, “Zinaida Serebriakova: Nude Portraits“, Tretyakov Art Gallery, No. 1/2008. (Warning: PDF!)