Designing for Nina Verchinina's choreographic vivacity: a new light on Loudon Sainthill's art

Nina Verchinina (1910-1995) was a striking, classically trained dancer whose beauty and choreographic work in the modern idiom were direct sources of inspiration for Loudon Sainthill's art. Arriving in Sydney in December 1939, along with Sainthill she had travelled aboard the Orcades from England with the Original Ballet Russe, the third Ballets Russes company to visit Australia, orchestrated by its savvy and creative director Colonel Wassily de Basil. As a young Australian artist whose lover Harry Tatlock Miller was the writer, entrepreneur and organiser of the Art for Theatre and Ballet exhibition held in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in conjunction with this tour, Sainthill had been fired by the colour, design, choreography and energy of the Ballets Russes and its principal dancers since their first Australian visit in 1936.