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Pictures from ballet history discovered
Bo Wilson, Evening Standard14 Sep 2006
Memorabilia of the most famous historic ballet dancers has been hidden for 80 years in a dusty archive.
Unseen photos of Margot Fonteyn, Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova are among treasures unearthed at the Royal Ballet School.
The collection includes programmes dating back to Tsarist Russia and others designed by Pablo Picasso as well as paintings and sketches of legendary dancers and notes and letters by the most influential people in ballet. There are figurines sculpted by Pavlova of herself and a pair of shoes signed by Fonteyn in 1939.
All are to go on display in a new museum at the school at White Lodge in Richmond Park, part of a £20 million redevelopment to be completed by the end of next year.
Archivist Anna Meadmore said the hoard had been "squirrelled away" since the Thirties. "We didn't really realise what we had," she said. "It was just sitting there with only the occasional specialist looking through anything."
