The Story of one painting: tennis player

RIGA – From 5 March to 17 August 2019, the Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova Museum in Riga (Elizabetes iela 57a, Apt. 26) can be proud to present the 2nd exhibition from the cycle The Story of One Painting, supplying visitors a have a look at the history of Aleksandra Beļcova’s painting Tennis Player.

This exhibition is a continuation of a previous venture from the cycle that began in 2015, while the museum pointed out other masterpieces with the aid of Aleksandra Beļcova (Александра Бельцова, 1892–1981), the painting Black and White (1925). Tennis Player (1927) is of equal significance in the artist’s legacy, as shown via the truth that both works are part of the permanent display of the

Latvian National Museum of Art. The Tennis Player has its personal history, too, which, to some extent, is just like the tale of White and Black advent.

In the early 20th century, particularly throughout the Nineteen Twenties, tennis became an elite but commonplace recreation in which several girls distinguished themselves. Such ladies appeared in the day’s artistic endeavors as athletes or girls who had just posted in tennis costumes with the applicable accessories because the pictures were younger than current ladies. The faladiesnable nature of tennis has become the case with politics and lifestyle, become related to World War I and the changes that it delivered

to public life – girls had extra rights and opportunities to work in various areas, including expert sports activities.

It should also be mentioned that the early twentieth century became a time when women started to appear as the most important figures in the degree of artwork, which the men had previously ruled. Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980), Nataliya Goncharova (Наталья Гончарова, 1881–1962), Marie Laurencin (1883–1956), Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979), Olga Rozanova (Ольга Розанова, 1886–1918), Lyubov Popova (Любовь Попова, 1889–1924) and other girls became stars of the international artwork world – something that has been very uncommon within the beyond. In this example, the Tennis Player can be seen as an icon in that the female athlete is depicted via a female artist.

It isn’t always clear who becomes the version for the portrayal through Aleksandra Beļcova. Perhaps it turned into the legendary French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen (1899–1938), who turned into the primary lady tennis megastar and the primary lady athlete on the global stage. Another possibility is that the female within the portrait is the equal person who appears in Black and White – the artist’s friend Biruta Ozoliņa.

(1905–1982).

The exhibition offers various variations of the identification of the Tennis Player prototype. It also provides a more in-depth examination of the art of Aleksandra Beļcova, positive elements of feminism, and the history of tennis throughout that time frame. The exposition is supplemented with documentary materials (photos and postcards), a tennis racquet, and a tennis participant dressed from the 1920s from the gathering of style historian Alexandre Vassiliev.