Rudolf Nureyev 1938-1993 Collection

Ballet dancer and choreographer Rudolph Nureyev (Russian Cyrillic: Рудольф Нуреев) was born in 1938 on a trans-Siberian train near the city of Irkutsk, then USSR. Nureyev’s mother and three sisters were traveling to Vladivostok, on Russia’s far Eastern coast, to join Nureyev’s father who was stationed there as a “politrouk” in the Soviet army. The family soon moved to the city of Ufa, in the Bashkir region, where seven-year-old Nureyev joined a traditional folk-dance group and fell in love with dance and performance. He made a name for himself locally, with many noting his talents and suggesting his mother enroll him in the Leningrad Ballet School. This refrain would haunt him throughout his youth, as despite his talent and desire, his family did not have the money to send him away. Nureyev struggled in school, both for his ungovernable and independent personality, and his obsessive focus on dance. He dropped out at age 15 to work as an extra at the Ufa opera, where he won friends and admirers who submitted a petition to the Leningrad Ballet School to grant him an audition. The school obliged, and after a successful audition, Nureyev enrolled in the Leningrad Ballet School on a scholarship at age 17.

Nureyev came into conflict almost immediately with his instructor and the school's director – he was strong-willed, undisciplined, and provincial by the standards of the school, where most pupils began their studies at age six or seven. But after a successful performance at a ballet contest in Moscow, his standing within the school steadily improved. Nureyev developed a closer relationship with his instructor, Alexander Pushkin (no relation to the poet of the same name), and after only three years of instruction, was asked to join the Kirov Ballet Company in 1958. Despite his widely recognized talent, Nureyev often found himself at odds with members of the Kirov company. He was punished for insubordination, and was often barred from traveling abroad. In 1961, Nureyev was permitted to travel with the Kirov Company on a month-long performance tour in Paris; while his dancing was a sensation, his behavior off the stage again brought him into conflict with the company's directors. When they attempted to send him back to the USSR rather than continue to the next tour stop in London, Nureyev, fearing he would never be permitted to leave, turned himself over to French officials and officially defected from the Soviet Union.

Nureyev became a media sensation overnight. He was immediately offered a contract with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and was hounded by press after each performance. During his first year in the West, he was introduced to Danish ballet dancer Erik Bruhn, whose work he had long admired. The pair were immediately drawn to one another, beginning an at-times tumultuous affair. Bruhn and Nureyev had near opposite personalities and dance styles, and Bruhn was often frustrated by rumors that Nureyev was attempting to "unseat" him as the world's preeminent male ballet dancer. Around the same time, Nureyev began dancing for the Royal Ballet in London, and was introduced to British ballerina Margot Fonteyn, who would become his close friend and frequent dance partner.

Nureyev became a fixture of New York and London society throughout the 1960s and 70s. Though expressing a dislike for celebrity and the press, Nureyev claimed many famous friends and acquaintances during these years, including Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, photographers Richard Avedon and Anthony Crickmay, and artists Andy Warhol and Jamie Wyeth. Nureyev met Wyeth in 1974, while the latter was working at The Factory in New York City. The two would become close friends. Wyeth first painted Nureyev in 1977 and went on to create 30 additional portraits of him during Nureyev's lifetime.

In 1982, Nureyev became the director of the Paris Opera Ballet, where he simultaneously acted as chief choreographer and danced in his own productions. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1984, but did not reveal his diagnosis publicly, continuing to direct and dance for the Ballet despite experiencing physical decline and repeated illness. In January of 1993, Nureyev died from AIDS-related complications at age 54. Some years later, Jamie Wyeth would again become inspired by Nureyev as a subject, finishing several portraits of his friend that he had started years earlier.