Item 1: Watercolours created for ‘The Flying Pieman, a Ballet Impression of Old Sydney’

PXD 1593/Box 1/nos.1-21

item

approximately 1942

Graphic Materials, Watercolours

9669204

21 watercolours - 31 cm x 38 cm or smaller

‘The Flying Pieman' ballet was created by Roderick Shaw (design and illustrations), Frances Shaw (storyline) and Nancy Salas (music). The ballet was an entry for a competition instigated by ballet impresario Wassily De Basil, who had brought the Ballet Russes to Australia (the competition was won by Donald Friend, for a ballet about Ned Kelly).

The ‘Flying Pieman’ story is a Sydney legend about William Francis King (1807-1873), a pie seller who became famous for feats of pedestrianism, such as beating the Sydney to Parramatta ferry on foot.

Reference
Library correspondence file

01. [Dancing figure on yellow grass near red hill]
02. 2 nuisances, pickpocket and drunk
03. 'Old nuisance' Inspector of Nuisances
04. ‘Garden Honey’
05. [Rural scene with fields and horses]
06. Town lady
07. ‘Rickety Dick’ Aboriginal beggar
08. Soldier
09. The young lady
10. Vegetable seller
11. Dance of the two sailors
12. Young officer
13. Flying Pieman
14. Country lovers
15. Corps. (evening)
16. Young girl (evening)
17. Gambler and Wheelbarrow man (porter)
18. Scene 1. Backcloth, Pieman and children
19. Girl emigrants
20. Scene 2. Macquarie Place, arrival of Pieman
21. Scene 3. Macquarie Place, Mazurka

In copyright:
Copyright holder:: Christine Shaw
Approval for reproduction required: from copyright holder
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy Christine Shaw