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The Pheasantry
The Pheasantry, 152 King's Road, Chelsea, London, is a Grade II listed building that was home to a number of important figures in 1960s London and a small music venue in the 1970s where a number of bands were able to play their first gigs. Early history The original buildings, now largely demolished, may have been constructed in 1766 or 1769. The site gets its name from the business of Samuel Baker who developed new breeds of oriental pheasants as well as cattle and foxes. Advertising appeared in '' The Field'' in 1865 offering pairs of birds for 15 guineas. Amédée Joubert and Son English Heritage believe that the current building was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century. The ''Companion Guide to London'' states that the Jouberts bought the building in 1880 and it seems that they added significant amounts of architectural decoration around that time. According to Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry, the building includes a "flamboyant Louis XV façade and a triumphal entr ...
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The Pheasantry-152 Kings Road
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant s ...
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Spirit Of Ecstasy
''The Spirit of Ecstasy'' is the bonnet ornament sculpture on Rolls-Royce cars. It is in the form of a woman leaning forwards with her arms outstretched behind and above her. Billowing cloth runs from her arms to her back, resembling wings. History ''The Whisper'', precursor to the ''Spirit of Ecstasy'' The first Rolls-Royce motorcars did not feature radiator mascots; they simply carried the Rolls-Royce emblem. When John, 2nd Baron Montagu commissioned his friend, sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes, who worked in London under the nobleman's patronage, to sculpt a personal mascot for the bonnet of his 1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Sykes chose Eleanor Velasco Thornton as his model. Sykes originally crafted a figurine of her in fluttering robes, having placed one forefinger against her lips – to symbolize the secret of the love affair between Thornton and Montagu. The figurine was consequently named ''The Whisper'' and is on display at the National Motor Museum in Beauli ...
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Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and ...
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Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online is an Oxford University Press online gateway into art research, which was launched in 2008. It provides access to several online art reference works, including Grove Art Online (originally published in 1996 in a print version, ''The Dictionary of Art''), the online version of the ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists'', and ''The Oxford Companion to Western Art''. It also provides access to other Oxford art reference works, including the ''Encyclopedia of Aesthetics ''Encyclopedia of Aesthetics'', published in 1998 by Oxford University Press, is an encyclopedia that covers philosophical, historical, sociological, and biographical aspects of Art and Aesthetics worldwide. The second edition (2014) is now availab ...'' (2nd edition), and ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms''. The site was updated on 1 December 2017 to enhance page design, search tools, linking, and media capabilities.
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Benezit Dictionary Of Artists
The ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists'' (in French, ''Bénézit: Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs'') is an extensive publication of bibliographical information on painters, sculptors, designers and engravers created primarily for art museums, auction houses, historians and dealers. It was published by Éditions Gründ in Paris but has been sold to Oxford University Press. First published in the French language in three volumes between 1911 and 1923, the dictionary was put together by Emmanuel Bénézit (1854–1920) and a team of international specialists with assistance from his son the painter Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit (1887–1975), and daughter Marguerite Bénézit. After the elder Bénézit's death the editors were Edmond-Henri Zeiger-Viallet (1895–1994) and the painter Jacques Busse (1922–2004), the younger Bénézit having already left Paris and moved to Provence. The next edition was an eight-volume set published between 1948 and 1955, ...
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Pietro Annigoni
Pietro Annigoni, OMRI (7 June 1910 – 28 October 1988) was an Italian artist, portrait painter, fresco painter and medallist, best known for his painted portraits of Queen Elizabeth II. His work was in the Renaissance tradition, contrasting with the modernist style that prevailed in his time. Life Born in Milan in 1910, Annigoni was influenced by the Italian Renaissance. From the end of the 1920s on, he lived mainly in Florence where he studied at the College of the Piarist Fathers. In 1927, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he attended the courses given by Felice Carena in painting, Giuseppe Graziosi in sculpture, and Celestino Celestini in etching. Annigoni enrolled in the nude class run by the Florentine Circolo degli Artisti, while attending the open class in the same subject at the Academy. Annigoni exhibited his work for the first time in Florence in 1930 with a group of painters. He had his first individual exhibition two years later, i ...
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Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias DBE (''née'' Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet (formerly the Sadler's Wells Theatre Company), eventually being appointed ''prima ballerina assoluta'' of the company by Queen Elizabeth II. Beginning ballet lessons at the age of four, she studied in England and China, where her father was transferred for his work. Her training in Shanghai was with Russian expatriate dancer Georgy Goncharov, contributing to her continuing interest in Russian ballet. Returning to London at the age of 14, she was invited to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School by Ninette de Valois. She succeeded Alicia Markova as prima ballerina of the company in 1935. The Vic-Wells choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, wrote numerous parts for Fonteyn and her partner, Robert Helpmann, with whom she danced from the 1930s to the 1940s. In 1946, the company ...
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Anton Dolin (ballet Dancer)
Sir Anton Dolin (27 July 190425 November 1983) was an English ballet dancer and choreographer. Biography Dolin was born in Slinfold in Sussex as Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay but was generally known as Patrick Kay or "Pat" to his friends. He was the second of three sons of Henry George Kay (1852-1922) and his wife, Helen Maude Chippendall Healey (1869-1960), from Dublin. He trained at Serafina Astafieva's school at The Pheasantry in London's King's Road.Decharne, Max. (2005) ''King's Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p. 23. He joined Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1921, was a principal there from 1924, and was a principal with the Vic-Wells Ballet in the 1930s. There he danced with Alicia Markova, with whom he went on to found the Markova-Dolin Ballet and the London Festival Ballet. He joined Ballet Theatre when it was formed in 1940 and remained there as a dancer and choreographer until 1946. ...
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Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there. Originally conceived by impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballets Russes is widely regarded as the most influential ballet company of the 20th century, in part because it promoted ground-breaking artistic collaborations among young choreographers, composers, designers, and dancers, all at the forefront of their several fields. Diaghilev commissioned works from composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Sergei Prokofiev, Erik Satie, and Maurice Ravel, artists such as Vasily Kandinsky, Alexandre Benois, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, and costume designers Léon Bakst and Coco Chanel. The company's productions created a huge sensation, completely reinvigorat ...
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Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld and Nigel Nicolson founded Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1949 with a reception at Brown's Hotel, London. Among many other significant books, it published Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita'' (1959) and Nicolson's ''Portrait of a Marriage'' (1973), a frank biography of his mother Vita Sackville-West and father Harold Nicolson. In its early years Weidenfeld also published nonfiction works by Isaiah Berlin, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and Rose Macaulay, and novels by Mary McCarthy and Saul Bellow. Later it published titles by world leaders and historians, along with contemporary fiction and glossy illustrated books. Weidenfeld & Nicolson acquired the publisher Arthur Baker Ltd in 1959, and ran it as an imprint into the 1990s. Weidenfeld was one of Orion's first a ...
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Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise. The active years of Diaghilev’s career can be divided into two periods: the one in St Petersburg (1898–1906) and the other in emigration (1906–1929). Biography Sergei Diaghilev was born in Selishchi to a noble officer . His mother died from childbed fever soon after his birth. In 1873, Pavel met and married Elena Panaeva, who loved Sergei and raised him as her own child. The in Perm was a local cultural centre, and the Diaghilevs housed a musical evening every second Thursday, Modest Mussorgsky being one of the most frequent guests. Sergei Diaghilev composed his first romance at the age of 15. When he enter ...
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Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova DBE (1 December 1910 – 2 December 2004) was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the twentieth century. She was the first British dancer to become the principal dancer of a ballet company and, with Dame Margot Fonteyn, is one of only two English dancers to be recognised as a prima ballerina assoluta. Markova was a founder dancer of the Rambert Dance Company, The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and was co-founder and director of the English National Ballet. Early years Markova was born as Lilian Alicia Marks on 1 December 1910. Her father, Arthur, was Jewish by birth; her mother, Eileen (nee Barry), converted to Judaism. The family lived in a two bedroom flat in Finsbury Park. Career Markova began to dance on medical advice t ...
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