Sketchbook containing drawings by Wilfred Fairclough, depicting the Royal Ballet backstage at Covent Garden, plus a class at West Street Studios and the guitarist of the Pilar Lopez Company, c.1957-58

Although much of his life was spent in teaching and administration at Kingston Polytechnic, Wilfred Fairclough (1907-1996) was one of the leading print-makers of his generation and a master etcher, with watercolour his preferred medium of expression. This and the other sketchbooks in this gift contain sketches of the Royal Ballet and stage staff backstage at Covent Garden and provide a record of the dancers at an important stage in the Company's history and of the backstage atmosphere and the look of the theatre before the renovations of the early 1960s. Fairclough does not appear to have worked up many of the sketches into finished etchings. His family only own three etchings made after the sketches, including The Lady and the Fool and Giselle. Associated production: La Peri, Ballet Imperial, Rinaldo and Armids, Les Sylphides. Dancers: Margit Muller, Margot Fonteyn, Svetlana Beriosova, Michael Somes, Anya Linden, Philip Chatfield . Performing company: Royal Ballet, Pilar Lopez Company. West Street Studios, London.

S.25-1998