Australia Dancing - Sainthill, Loudon (1919

Sainthill, Loudon (1919 - 1969)

Loudon Sainthill was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and spent his early school years in Melbourne. Drawn to the theatre after seeing performances of Colonel de Basil’s Russian Ballet in the late 1930s, he took up art studies at the Art School, Melbourne Technical College and held his first exhibition at the Australia Hotel, Melbourne. After befriending Wassily de Basil and many of the dancers in the company, Sainthill was approached with a commission to design Serge Lifar’s Icare. The commission was, however, eventually secured for Sidney Nolan by Lifar and Peter Bellew. Sainthill did succeed in obtaining a commission for Nina Verchinina’s Etude, although Sainthill’s designs were not used for performances. Following the completion of the 1939-1940 tour of the Original Ballet Russe Sainthill travelled with company to London.

Returning to Australia in the early 1940s he 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. During 1941 Sainthill received a series of commissions from Helene Kirsova to create costumes and set designs for the Kirsova Ballet, including A Dream – and a Fairy Tale, Faust, Les Matelots, and Vieux Paris. These designs are now held by the National Gallery of Australia.

In 1945 Sainthill provided a large suite of costume designs for the Art Gallery of NSW exhibition A History of Costume from 4000 BC to 1945 AD, which were subsequently purchased, by public subscription, for the Gallery. During the 1947-1949 Ballet Rambert Australian tour Sainthill collaborated with other artists on producing printed material for the company.

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)'.

In 1949 Sainthill returned to London, where he undertook his first professional engagement as a costume and set designer was for a production of The Tempest, at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon. This 1951 production was directed by Michael Benthall and reprised in 1952 and 1953. Sainthill designed three further productions in 1951, including Coppelia for Sadler’s Wells Ballet, London. This was followed by Le Coq d’or (1954) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, directed by Robert Helpmann, and ‘The Sleeping Princess’ ballet sequence for the Korda Film production of The Man who Loved Redheads (1954).

Over the course of his career Sainthill designed sets and costumes for almost fifty productions for opera, ballet, film, revue, pantomime, and musical performances in England and the USA. He died in 1969 in London.

Bibliography:

The National Gallery of Australia holds over 800 costume and set designs by Loudon Sainthill, and approximately 60 for dance productions including those for Kirsova’s Faust, A Dream and a Fairy Tale, and Vieux Paris, and designs for Ballet Rambert printed material. 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