Lot 189: VASLAV NIJINSKY

PROPERTY FROM THE CARR DOUGHTY COLLECTION 1890-1950 LE REVEUR AND LE SOLDAT Quantity: 2 inscribed Villa Guardamunt / S Moritz l.r.; bearing exhibition labels on the reverse coloured pencil and chalk over pencil on paper 17 by 24cm, 6 3/4 by 9 1/2 in.

Coventry, Belgrade Theatre, Northern Arts Association, 1970 Darlington, Darlington Civic Theatre, 1971

Marcel Steele, London Acquired from the above by John Carr Doughty A gift from John Carr Doughty to the present owner in the 1990s

Nijinsky moved to St Moritz with his family in 1918, following his break from the Ballets Russes and his unsuccessful attempts to resurrect his career. By 1919 he began to show signs of the schizophrenic condition that would affect him for the rest of his life. He locked himself in his studio every night, furiously creating abstract compositions such as the present two works. He had been taught art in St. Petersburg as a young man, attending Leon Bakst's classes alongside Marc Chagall. Abstract works on paper by Nijinsky have recently been included in the Inventing Abstraction exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, December 2012 – April 2013, recognising his contribution to modernism in a field other than dance.