Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Pelican Books - Ballet (1945) - vintage illustrations



The other weekend I went to an antiques fair and found a copy of the 1945 edition of Pelican Books' guide to Ballet, first published in 1938 to what seems to be pretty good success (there were three reprints in 1938, one in 1940 and one in 1943, before a new edition came out in January 1945).



I mainly bought it for the beautiful illustration by Kay Ambrose, so I thought I'd do a 'Brain Pickings'-style post and share some of these. I can't decide whether my favourite is Checkmate or Les Patineurs - love the sense of the dancers being front of stage, almost blinded by the lights.

Les Sylphides (Kay Ambrose)