Diaghilev Exhibition at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum

Diaghilev Exhibition, Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, March 29

Since his death in 1929 a great deal has been written about the influence of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on the subsequent history of ballet, and major exhibitions like the one presented at London’s V&A in 2010 made available its vast collection of photographs, costumes and programs from the Diaghilev era. Just recently a private collector (who wishes to remain anonymous) in Wiltshire contacted the Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum to see if it would be interested in displaying his personal collection of Ballets Russes ephemera accrued over more than half a century. The resulting exhibition — the first time it has been seen in public — is like entering the inner sanctum of a devoted collector, a personal and idiosyncratic ambience that curator Philippa Tinsley has thoughtfully reproduced. If there are few recognizable thematic threads running through the collection, Tinsley has not tried to impose them in the exhibition; the fascination for dance enthusiasts is in the unexpected treasures that the collection’s apparent randomness reveals. At the same time, the display offers those with a more superficial knowledge of the Ballets Russes an opportunity to deepen their understanding vicariously through the passionate eye of an erudite balletomane. 

The collection provides a vivid understanding of the passions Diaghilev’s company aroused and continues to arouse while at the same time giving a tantalizing glimpse of what items might still remain of that glorious era of ballet in private hands. Some of the objects on display, such as photographs and costumes, reveal their value at first sight; others, such as programs illustrated by the likes of Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, and albums of photographs like the rare Studies from the Russian Ballet by E.O. Hoppé and Auguste Bert (London: Fine Art Society, 1913), are treasures whose value is hidden under the cover: one wants to be able to leaf through them page by page, but understandably the preservation of the material overrides the ability to handle it (perhaps a next stage might be to digitize the collection and to make it available online). 

With careful timing and within the same space the Worcester City Art Gallery is also hosting a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition, Matisse: Drawing With Scissors that features 35 lithographic prints of cutouts from the latter part of the artist’s life. Henri Matisse was one of many artists who worked for Diaghilev; a photograph of him fitting Alicia Markova’s body suit with cutout shapes for Massine’s ballet Rouge et Noir beautifully synthesizes the seamless connections between the two shows. The adjacent rooms and their complementary exhibits reveal an approach to curating that is both unassuming and welcoming, giving visitors a chance to take in the displays at their leisure as if they, too, were in the shoes of the collector appraising his collection. Tinsley has also provided a context to the exhibition in the form of the 2005 film, Ballets Russes, directed and produced by Danya Goldfine and Dan Geller, played on a screen of domestic proportions in the corner of the room with three cinema seats from which to watch it. 

This Diaghilev exhibition is a wonderful achievement that highlights the importance of an art institution like the Worcester City Art Gallery at a time when funding is ever more scarce and the likelihood of cuts ever more daunting. But well-crafted and distinctive exhibitions like this, no matter how intimate, are what give value to the ideal of making a public display of a private obsession.

The exhibition Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Matisse: Drawing With Scissors runs at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum until April 27.