Dancers: Anna Duncan

 

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)

c. 1926  

color drypoint and aquatint 

18 3/4 x 15 7/16" 

pencil, lower right 

Not stated 

pencil titled lower left and bottom left corner of sheet, "Made in Austria" stamped on reverse. Printed on two sheets 

 

Thin ivory laid, doubled 

published 

artist 

DASL146 

SOLD

Anna Duncan, one of the six informally recognized "Isadorables", or step-daughters of Isadora Duncan, was born Anna Denzler in 1894 in Switzerland. She auditioned in 1905 for Duncan's boarding school in Grunewald, and was immediately accepted. One of Anna’s early performance memories was the German city of Mannheim’s Tercentenary Jubilee (1907), with a floating stage designed by artist Gordon Craig.

By 1926, after touring throughout France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S., Anna had settled in New York to both perform and teach, taking a position at Carnegie Hall. Her first solo performance was at New York’s Theatre Guild. She also acted in and choregraphed for silent films. After Isadora’s death, Anna dedicated herself to preserving her art and choreography. She toured and performed often, both as a soloist and with the Riva Hoffman Dancers, and in her own successful company, the Anna Duncan Dancers. A performance in 1931 at New York City’s Lewisohn Stadium broke all attendance records.

She continued to teach in New York for much of her life. She died in 1980.

Information partially gathered from the Isadora Duncan archive online.