AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Ballet Rehearsal – studies for Camargo Ballet drop curtain

Illustrations © The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

(recto) Ballet Rehearsal – study for Camargo Ballet drop curtain, c.1931
(inscribed and dated in black ballpoint '1925', although the Camargo Ballet was operational only from 1930 to 1933; see below)
Pencil, 24 cm x 31 cm

(verso) Part of drawing of Lydia Keynes, c.1932
Red chalk, 24.5 cm x 25 cm
Cf. John Maynard Keynes and Lydia Lopokova 1932

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts (held in Tate store, 2014)

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Ballet Rehearsal – study for Camargo Ballet drop curtain (aka Drop Curtain for the Carmago Ballet), c.1931
(inscribed in black ballpoint ‘1925’, although the Camargo Ballet was operational only from 1930 to 1933; see below)
Pencil, 23.1 cm x 34 cm

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts (2001) > Tate Gallery (T12673, accepted by H.M. Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2007)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Cambridge 1985 (as Drop Curtain for the Carmago Ballet)

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Ballet Rehearsal – study for Camargo Ballet drop curtain (aka Camargo Ballet Backdrop), c.1931
(also dated as 1934: Anthony d'Offay Gallery (1) 1969)
Pencil, 26.7 cm x 31.8 cm.

This study appears to have been signed at some date following its reproduction in Roberts's Paintings 1917–1958 (1960). Possibly this and the other pencil studies (above) were signed and, in the other cases, inscribed and incorrectly dated (in ballpoint) at the same time – perhaps in advance of this work's exhibition at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in 1969.
PROVENANCE: Private collection, UK > Offer Waterman (before Nov. 2006)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Anthony d'Offay Gallery (1) 1969 (as Camargo Ballet Backdrop)
REPRODUCED: Roberts, Paintings 1917–1958, p. 38

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Ballet Rehearsal – study for Camargo Ballet drop curtain (aka Ballet Dancers and Ballet Dancers Rehearsing), c.1931
Watercolour, pen and ink, 26.5 cm x 37.5 cm

The Camargo Society was set up in 1930 with the purpose of furthering the interests of English ballet. Principal dancers included Lydia Lopokova (married to Maynard Keynes), Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin. Operational only from 1930 to 1933, the society was innovative and influential. In addition to William Roberts, other artists who designed for it included Vanessa Bell, Edward Burra, Duncan Grant and Gwen Raverat.
Design used in the Savoy Theatre, 1932 ('There was little pleasure and not much amusement to be had from the special drop-curtain painted by Mr. William Roberts and exposed to view during the performance of Constant Lambert's Romeo and Juliet Suite in the interval' – The Times, 8 June 1932).
PROVENANCE: Sotheby's 23 Apr. 1969 > Cork Street Gallery (£430) > ? (Dec. 1969) > Sotheby's 11 Dec. 2006 (as Ballet Dancers, £27,600)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Lefevre Gallery (1) 1935 (as Ballet Dancers Rehearsing