Pen, paper & a box of paints: Albert Rutherston, illustrator and designer for the stage

2015

Special Collections NC242 R88 R44 2015

Upper Denby, Huddersfield, England: The Fleece Press

These images, by artist and set designer Albert Rutherston, were the costume designs drawn for Anna Pavlova’s ballet piece Le Reveil de Flore (1914). The famous Russian ballet dancer lived in England from 1912 and danced the role of Flora, the goddess of Spring (right). The notes on the image, written in Rutherston’s almost illegible script, reveals that Flora’s shoes were ‘bright green’ and her crown ‘white’. The goddess Diana’s costume (left) is recognisable from the ‘leopard skin’ draped around her shoulders.