In July 1910, while the young sculptor Malvina Hoffman (1887-1966) was studying in
Paris, she made a brief visit to London where she attended Pavlova’s performance at the Palace
Theater. She wrote of the experience in her biography: “Fireworks were set off in my mind. …
Here were impressions of motion of a new kind, of dazzling vivacity and spontaneity and yet with a
control that could come only from long discipline and dedication. The incomparable Anna cast her
spell over me, and it was inevitable that I should wish to portray her in my own work, in
sculpture.”
From 1913 until 1925 only Anna Pavlova’s company regularly toured the
country. Consequently, during those years, Pavlova asserted a great deal of influence over the
country’s perceptions of classical ballet. Anna Pavlova’s dancing significantly influenced the work of
American sculptor Malvina Hoffman. From the time Hoffman first encountered Pavlova as a young
artist, the dancer served as a muse for the sculptor, who depicted Pavlova many times hoping to
convey the ballerina’s quality of movement and the energy of her performances.
27
Shortly after Hoffman attended her first Pavlova performances, she returned to Paris and
resumed her studies with Auguste Rodin. She soon tired of her commissioned works, which
Hoffman was so taken by the dances she witnessed that summer evening that she
attended the theater again the next night and began to make sketches based on the performances.
Hoffman was particularly struck by “Autumn Bacchanale,” the concluding movement of Seasons, a
four-act ballet inspired by the tales of ancient Greece. Choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to music
by Alexander Glazunov and performed during that London season by Anna Pavlova and Mikhail
Mordkin, “Autumn Bacchanale” staged a Bacchic revelry.