Author: un regard oblique

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Masquerade,1924

Maskerade, carnaval. Uit het maskerade-ballet ‘Sand und Wind’ door kunstenaarspaar Anna Wilström en Helmut Lotz, 1924. | Masquerade, carnival. From the masquerade ballet ‘Sand und Wind’ by artist couple Anna Wilström and Helmut Lotz, 1924. Het Leven magazine (leven 022) |src Nationaal Archief

Désirée Lubovska, 1918

Marcia Mishkin Stein :: “Russian” dancer Désirée Lubovska (aka Mme Lubowska), 1918. Désirée Lubovska was not actually Russian. It was the stage name of American born dancer Winniefred Foote. | src Worthpoint
Marcia Mishkin Stein :: “Russian” dancer Désirée Lubovska (aka Mme Lubowska), 1918. | src Worthpoint

A whimsical avant-garde portrait of Lubovska, the erotic Orientalist ballerina, as she strikes a dramatic pose in a risqué costume. This image was used to help promote Lubovska’s turn in Charles Dillingham’s musical spectacle “Everything” that played at New York City’s Hippodrome Theater and was accompanied by music by John Phillip Sousa. Mlle. Lubovska or Lubowska, as she was known, was born in Minnesota; she invented a mysterious Russian past as a way of capitalizing on the glamour of Pavlova, who was at the time, the reigning queen of ballet. Her romantic origin story also lent an air of mystery to her “Egyptian dances” as they were billed.

Marcia Mishkin Stein :: “Russian” dancer Désirée Lubovska (aka Mme Lubowska), 1918 (full size)

Désirée Lubovska · ca. 1915

Underwood & Underwood :: Portrait of ‘Russian’ dancer Désirée Lubowska [aka Mme Lubowska or Lubovska], full-length portrait, standing, left profile, in Cleopatra costume, 9 September 1915. (Désirée Lubovska was not actually Russian. It was the stage name of American born dancer Winniefred Foote). | src Library of Congress
White Studio (NY) :: Portrait of ‘Russian’ dancer Désirée Lubowska [aka Mme Lubowska or Lubovska], full-length portrait, standing, right profile, in Cleopatra costume, 1915. | src Les sources d’une île

Desiree Lubovska, also Desiree Lubowska, was the professional name of American dancer Winniefred Foote (1893 – 1974). Foote was born in Minnesota. She changed her name, adopted an accent in her speech, and created a backstory of dancing in Russia; she also said that she studied Egyptian art at the British Museum. She went on a diet and fitness regimen in pursuit of a more angular physique, and her dances reflect this focus. ‘I finally felt I was one of them, a reincarnated spirit of the Nile’; she said in a 1921 interview.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia entry (in English)

Ballet dancer Desiree Loubovska / Lubovska. Egyptian dance of mourning taken from tombs of Egypt. Press photo by White Studios (1916) | src Worthpoint ~ Worthopedia

The text “Egyptian dance of mourning taken from tombs of Egypt” can be read on the verso of the photograph, written in pencil amongst the stamps of press agencies.

Woman standing on cliff, 1902

Nearly a mile straight down and only a step–from Glacier Point, Yosemite valley, ca. 1902 [detail]
Nearly a mile straight down and only a step–from Glacier Point (N.W.) across valley to Yosemite Falls, Yosemite, Cal.,ca. 1902. Underwood & Underwood. Half stereo card.

Original title: Nearly a mile straight down and only a step–from Glacier Point (N.W.) across valley to Yosemite Falls, Yosemite, Cal. [Description: Woman standing on cliff overlooking deep valley.]. Underwood & Underwood, publishers, New York, ca. 1902. Digital file from original photo : photographic print on stereo card : stereograph. [scanned half stereo] | src Library of Congress

Underwood & Underwood :: Woman standing on cliff overlooking deep valley, 1900-1910
B&W film copy negative from original stereo card | src Library of Congress
View of woman standing on an overhanging rock at Glacier Point with Yosemite Falls seen in the distance. | src ALMA repository