Drawing

Dance historian and publisher Cyril Beaumont was given to 'enthusiasms' and, having commissioned his artist-friends to illustrate publications on ballets created by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, he decided to try his own hand at illustrating productions. In his book Bookseller at the Ballet, p.146, he describes how in 1913, after befriended the artist Adrian Allinson and buying his painting '1830' which showed a scene of a production at the Alhambra, he decided to try and paint scenes from Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes himself. He was surprised when one of his paintings of Scheherazade, which he had framed and put on display in his shop, sold for ten pounds! Shortly afterwards he overheard Allinson and a friend talking. When the friend commented that he never knew Beaumont was an artist, Allinson replied 'Well, he paints'. Fortunately Beaumont gave up this enthusiasm and instead commissioned fine artists to recall scenes from the ballets but his own attempts to do so may be said to have inspired him to commission his range of souvenirs.