"The Dancer", portrait oil painting of Irina Baronova in costume for Swan Lake, ca. 1939 / Virgil Reilly

ML 1309

fonds

ca. 1939

Graphic Materials, Paintings

910495

1 painting - oil on canvas - 128 x 97 cm

Virgil Reilly, 1892-1974, is known for his work as a newspaper cartoonist, specifically for the ‘The Virgil Girls’ which appeared in the tabloid newspaper Smith’s Weekly during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also a comic book artist, illustrator and painter, contributing to The Women's Weekly, Truth (Melbourne) and The Daily Mirror.

Reference:
Virgil Reilly: From Pin-Ups to 'Punch' Perkins / Kevin Patrick. http://comicsdownunder.blogspot.com.au/2006/12/virgil-reilly-from-pin-ups-to-punch.html (accessed 13-06-2013)

Irina Baronova was born in Petrograd in 1919, before moving to Romania with her family at the age of 1. In Bucharest she began her dance training where her talent was spotted early on. Baronova then moved with her family to Paris where she was taught by Olga Preobrajenska and scouted by the choreographer George Balanchine who recruited her for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. As part of the Ballet Russe, Baronova, alongside Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska, became known as one of the three famous 'baby ballerinas', a term coined by writer Arnold Haskell.

Baronova toured Australia with The Ballet Russes during the years 1939-40 performing in Les Sylphides, Les Presages, Swan Lake and Aurora's Wedding, among other ballets. Whilst in Sydney in 1939, she married German Sevastianov whom she had eloped with.

The dancer spent her last 8 years in the hinterland of Byron Bay, until her death in 2007. Her memoirs 'Irina: ballet, life and love', were published in 2005.

Reference:
Baronova, Irina (1919-2008), National Library of Australia, http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/677070 (accessed 12-06-2013)

Painting is a full body portrait of ballerina Irina Baronova dressed in a white tutu and standing 'en pointe'.

Copyright status:: In copyright - Life of creator plus 70 years
Copyright holder:: assignee of Virgil Reilly
Approval for reproduction required:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder

Published as the cover illustration for The Women's Weekly, 17 June 1939¶¶Discussed in : "Baronova painting uncovered at the State Library of NSW", Valerie Lawson's blog Dancelines, 26 June 2013. http://dancelines.com.au/ (accessed June 27, 2013)

Pic.Acc. Upgrade Project - Information transferred from Pic.Acc.2695 as part of the eRecords Project 2012-13
Women's weekly, 17 June 1939, cover - http://trove.nla.gov.au/aww/read/204252#page/1/mode/1up

Signed, upper right hand corner

The subject of the painting, Irina Baronova, was identified in a photograph which the painting was copied from : Geoffrey Ingram archive of Australian ballet. http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an24830090 (accessed 12-06-2013).

Baronova does not mention the painting in her autobiography and she had left Australia before it was published in the Women's weekly

Reference:
Irina : ballet, life and love / Irina Baronova. Camberwell, Vic. : Viking, 2005

No date

Requires paint consolidation. It has been re-stretchered as it had been stored rolled