Unsung Heroines
SOLDLaura Knight (1877 - 1970):
Portrait of Lubov Tchernicheva, 1921
Framed (ref: 2917)
Signed
Oil on Canvas, 31.9 x 26.8 in. (81 x 68 cm.)
See all works by Laura Knight oil music portraits theatre
Provenance: With the artist until 1970; private collection
Exhibited: Laura Knight Portraits, The National Portrait Gallery, London, 11th July - 13th October; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 2 November 2013 – 16 February 2014;
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 1 March – 10 May 2014.
Laura Knight at the Theater, The Lowry, 2008; Nottingham Castle Museum, 2008
Literature:Laura Knight Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2013, illustrated
Laura Knight at the Theater, The Lowry, 2008, illustrated.
Tchernicheva, Lubov (b St Petersburg, 17 Sept. 1890, d Richmond, Surrey, 1 Mar. 1976).
Russian-British dancer, teacher and ballet mistress. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Fokine; later with Cecchetti. Upon graduation in 1908, she joined the Maryinsky Theatre (the Kirov) where she married the ballet regisseur Grigoriev in 1909. Together they went to the Diaghilev company in 1911. She became a principal dancer with Diaghilev and stayed with the company until it folded in 1929, one of its finest character dancers. She created many roles, among them parts in Massine's The Good-Humoured Ladies (1917), La Boutique fantasque (1919), Pulcinella (1920), Zéphire et Flore (1925), and Le Pas d'acier (1927), Nijinska's Les Noces (1923) and Les Fâcheux (1924), and Balanchine's Jack-in-the-Box (1926), The Triumph of Neptune (1926), Apollon musagète (Calliope, 1928), and The Gods Go a-Begging (1928). She was also a great success in the Fokine roles of Zobeide, Thamar, and Cleopatra.
