Australia Dancing - Sainthill, Loudon (1919

Sainthill, Loudon (1919 - 1969)

Loudon Sainthill was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and spent his early school years in Melbourne. He began taking art classes in the early 1930s and was drawn to the theatre after seeing performances of Colonel de Basil’s Russian Ballet later in that decade. Sainthill spent considerable time with the Russian dancers. He sketched them frequently and travelled with them to England in 1939 at the end of the second tour to Australia, that of the Covent Garden Russian Ballet. He returned to Australia later in 1939 and was approached by Colonel de Basil to design Serge Lifar’s production of Icare for the Original Ballet Russe. The commission eventually went to Sidney Nolan but Sainthill was later asked to work on Nina Verchinina’s Etude. Sainthill’s designs for Etude never went into production although they were exhibited in Sydney and Melbourne in the British Council exhibition Art for Theatre and Ballet and were publicised by critics in Australia and by Colonel de Basil writing for the Dancing Times in London.

In the early 1940s Sainthill received a series of commissions from Helene Kirsova to create costumes and set designs for the Kirsova Ballet. His work with the Kirsova Ballet included designs for A Dream – and a Fairy Tale, Faust, Les Matelots, and Vieux Paris. Also in the 1940s Sainthill served in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps (RAAMC), began exhibiting at Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, and became a member of the artists’ colony at Merioola in Sydney where his colleagues included photographer Alec Murray, artists Donald Friend and Justin O’Brien, choreographer Walter Gore and visiting artists from the Ballet Rambert. For the Ballet Rambert’s Australian tour Sainthill collaborated on producing printed materials promoting the company. In 1945 he provided a collection of costume designs for an exhibition A History of Costume from 4000 BC to 1945 AD held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which were subsequently purchased by public subscription for the Gallery.

In 1949 Sainthill returned to London and over the next two decades designed sets and costumes for almost fifty productions of opera, ballet, film, revue, pantomime, and musical performances in England and the USA. They included The Tempest in 1951, Robert Helpmann’s production of Le Coq d’or in 1954 for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and ‘The Sleeping Princess’ ballet sequence for Korda Film’s production of The Man who Loved Redheads also in 1954.

He died in 1969 in London.

For further online resources relating to Sainthill’s printed work for the Ballet Rambert tour see the National Library of Australia's online exhibition Dance people dance, 'Artistic impact (Item 7)'.

Bibliography:

The National Gallery of Australia holds over 800 costume and set designs by Loudon Sainthill, approximately 60 for dance productions including those for Kirsova’s Faust, A Dream and a Fairy Tale, and Vieux Paris. See also Loudon Sainthill: paintings, drawings, designs for the theatre (London: Redfern Gallery, 1973); Harry Tatlock Miller (ed.), Loudon Sainthill (London: Hutchinson [1973]); Loudon Sainthill: set and costume designs (Sydney: David Jones' Art Gallery, 1978); Bryan Robertson, 'Loudon Sinthill, in grateful memory', Art and Australia, Vol 10, No 2 (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1972).

Research Materials

Ephemera

Other resources

Find more about Sainthill, Loudon in:

Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia