James Wyeth

James Wyeth, Profile, In Fur, Nureyev (1977), 20 inches by 16 inches, combined media.

by Interview by Lewis Whittington

After tours at the Kennedy Center, New York Public Library and Farnsworth Art Museum, James Wyeth's "Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer" comes home to the Brandywine River Museum. Wyeth painted more than 35 portraits of the dance titan and purchased many of his costumes (also part of the exhibit). When Wyeth, a third-generation American artist, approached Rudolf Nureyev to be the subject of a series of portraits and theatrical paintings in 1974, the mercurial Russian dance god, at the height of his celebrity, barked out a resounding, "No, I have no time!" Three years later the dancer finally consented. Nureyev, literally born in motion (on a train traveling the Ural Mountains), allowed his turbulent life to be exposed, in glimpses, by Wyeth. Wyeth shadowed Nureyev for more than a year in 1977, in New York and Europe, and a unique collaboration between the volatile enfant terrible of the dance world and the favorite son of an American artistic dynasty was born.

City Paper: Why did Nureyev agree to sit for you after refusing?

James Wyeth: I don't know what changed his mind. I know he saw our family exhibit in Moscow and was intrigued. Some time afterwards in New York, he came up to me and said, "Well, I am here."

CP: What were the challenges capturing a dancer?

JW: Nureyev took class every morning at [American Ballet Theater] and I started to go with him to observe and realized that he was a moving target. I thought, Christ, I'll never get him to stand still. So I thought that I would use a model double for some of the work. Nureyev saw me looking at this other dancer and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he shouted, "This piggy body for mine? No! I pose alone for my body. I do it!" I didn't do it as a trick. But it worked. Then he let me have full access backstage and everywhere else.

CP: Was Nureyev difficult?

JW: He questioned me on several occasions over some of the paintings. After one matinee performance of Pierrot Lunaire, Nureyev flew out of the theater still in makeup, bare-chested with his famous fur over his shoulders. He thought [to paint this was] undignified but he relented for that and everything else I had in mind.

CP: What was your artistic approach to capturing Nureyev?

JW: I didn't really know or care, I just wanted to charge into it and record what I saw. I knew I didn't want to do arabesques and leaps. I didn't want to freeze-frame anything. He also was a hell of a lot of fun and we had a great time.

CP: Were you surprised you became friends?

JW: He had a wonderful sense of humor. He knew I was serious. He knew I wasn't a sycophant. He was a great student of painting and sculpture and was very interested in my family's work.

CP: What was it about his physicality that you wanted to get on canvas?

JW: He was just incredibly sexual and overt. I didn't consciously bring out anything homoerotic. These things just naturally came out with him. His mere presence was animalistic. And onstage you couldn't take your eyes off of him. The fact that he was a dancer was immaterial, because everything about him was beguiling. On top of that was his personality. His whole personality was larger than life.

CP: Did you deliberately make some of the paintings darker?

JW: There was a pathos and tragedy to him also. For instance, he was devastated when he finally returned to Russia and practically no one received him. The Soviets completely erased him. They welcomed Mikhail Baryshnikov -- who did the same thing -- when he returned. They never forgot, I guess, because Nureyev was the first to defect. And he really only did it simply because he wanted to dance.

"Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer," through May 18, Brandywine River Museum, U.S. Route 1 and PA Route 100, Chadds Ford, 610-388-2700.