Dancers. Buenos Aires, 1930s / 50s.

Set of seven photographs, gelatin silver prints, of various sizes (from 24 x 18 cm / 9.44 x 7.08 in, to 10 x 8 cm / 3.93 x 3.14 in), all with the wet stamp on the back “Photo Studio Annemarie Heinrich. Santa Fe 1026. T. E. 41-8358. Buenos Aires ”, and some with the signature on the negative, on the front. One of them with the date included in the wet stamp "1951" and almost all of them referenced in handwriting on the back. 

The ensemble includes leading figures of the Teatro Colón dance, such as Víctor Ferrari, born in the La Boca neighborhood, and María Ruanova, from San Juan, both portrayed with their costumes from the ballet “Hamlet”. Also to three other magnificent Argentine dancers, who were part of the Marqués de Cueva Ballet (a company financed by the last great patron of dance, the Marqués Jorge de Cuevas): Alba Luteria, Adolfo Andrade and Armando Navarro. At the same time, and integrating this company, and probably portrayed during the same tours of Buenos Aires -of 1954 and 1956- we identify the Chilean dancer Cecilia Barra.

Two fundamental figures of international dance stand out who in those years worked in our "First Coliseum", the Russians Raisa Struchkova and Serge Lifar; they both posed in Henrich's studio. Struchkova, who arrived in the country in 1957, in a beautiful portrait of the of character, in profile, and Serge Lifar, who danced and directed in our country between 1934 and 1935, together with the Argentine dancer that he chose as his partner, María Ruanova (election that meant an international projection in her career). Let us remember that Lifar was a dancer in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, until he was appointed director and principal dancer of the ballet at the Paris Opera. It is known that Lifar posed several times in front of the camera of Annemarie Heinrich, and from the meeting of both talents exquisite portraits were born, desired by the great collections. The National Gallery of Art in Washington has one of them taken in the famous studio on Santa Fe Avenue: Lifar with the costumes from "The Knight of the Rose." (1)

The set presented here is completed by a portrait of Eva Fernbach and a beautiful photograph, without title; the only shot obtained with a natural background, a very successful image, with great movement, with a leaping dancer.

Annemarie Heinrich (1912 - 1985), of German origin, was one of the most prominent portraitists who acted in our country. Trained in the trade already in Argentina, where she moved with her family around 1926, she documented with her camera the artistic figures who visited us; especially those linked to the world of ballet, a particular attraction that led her to publish a collection book: Ballet en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1962). Those international stars enjoyed passing through her creative studio, where exquisite portraits emerged

Notes: 1. We offer in our gallery another Parisian portrait that shows us Serge Lifar together with Jean Cocteau and Nina Byrouovona, in an essay of the work Fedra.