Dancers: Vienna Valse (La Valse)

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

c. 1925  

drypoint, printed in deep red ink 

15 5/8 x 13 9/16" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

12 (of 15) 

pencil titled, lower left; pencil editioned (partially erased due to a projection that was not met); pencil annotated "printed a. 15" (printed around 15) along lower sheet edge; red Friedl Pollak Collection stamp, lower left sheet corner 

 

cream wove 

published 

artist 

24058 

$450.00 

Max Pollak titled this piece "Vienne valse", which likely refers to French composer Maurice Ravel's "La Valse", a concert work intended as a ballet for Ballets Russes founder Serge Diaghilev. As it was completed between 1919 and 1920, and due to its dark and expressive style, it was often misconstrued as Ravel's reaction to the First World War and the destruction of Vienna. Ravel dismissed this notion, however, saying it had no symbolic meaning and was originally conceived of as a tribute to Austrian composer Johann Strauss II. Diaghilev, upon hearing the work, rejected it as not a ballet but a "portrait of a ballet" - the two artists never spoke again. Despite this, La Valse quickly rose in popularity asfter its debut in Antwerp by the Royal Flemish Opera Ballet, as Europe recovered from the ravages of war.

A recurring theme for the costuming of this ballet, which is now more often performed as a concert piece, were airy, ephemeral skirts for the ballerinas. Modern dance had begun to make headway in the European ballet world by the time Pollak created this drypoint, and the simplified, fluid gowns popularized by such dancers as Isadora Duncan is seen here with the long, gauzy costume of his subject.