Not currently on display at the V&A

The Seagull

Costume Design
1970 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Costume design by Michael Annals for Irina Arkadina in Act II of Anton Chekhov's play, The Seagull, Habima Theatre, Tel Aviv, 1970.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he created notable settings for a range of productions, including O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night starring Laurence Olivier, Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page and Shaw's Heartbreak House. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleThe Seagull (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour, ink, pencil and crayon on paper
Brief description
Costume design by Michael Annals for Irina Arkadina in Act II of Anton Chekhov's play, The Seagull, Habima Theatre, Tel Aviv, 1970
Physical description
Costume design for Irina Arkadina Treplev in Act II of The Seagull. Full length female figure wearing a pale turquoise dress under a white and turquoise striped overdress with an attached lace cape at the shoulders. She carries a parasol in her right hand. With pencil annotations by the artist, giving details of fabrics, and pencil sketches of the cape, right. A fabric swatch has been detached by Conservation and is housed in a separate wallet.

Dimensions
  • Height: 56cm
  • Width: 38.3cm
Marks and inscriptions
Transliteration
Credit line
Bequeathed by Michael Annals
Summary
Costume design by Michael Annals for Irina Arkadina in Act II of Anton Chekhov's play, The Seagull, Habima Theatre, Tel Aviv, 1970.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he created notable settings for a range of productions, including O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night starring Laurence Olivier, Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page and Shaw's Heartbreak House. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.
Bibliographic reference
Arnold Wengrow, Observe and show: the theatre art of Michael Annals (London: V&A Publications, 2003)
Collection
Accession number
S.420-1991

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Record createdFebruary 1, 2011
Record URL
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