Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired from an exhibition in Birmingham circa 1960.
Thence by descent to the present owner.

The present lot depicts Sonje Henie in one of her earliest performances of her show 'Sonja Henie Ice Revue', that she started after her breakup with Arthur Wirtz. The performance was produced at The Blackpool Ice Dome. Sonje Henie (1912 – 1969) was a Norwegian World and Olympic champion and later a film star, known for her figure skating performances. Sonje won the first of her ten consecutive World Championships in 1927 and the first of her three consecutive Olympic Gold medals in 1928, which as a feat has not since been matched by any lady's singles skater. Henie is credited with being the first figure skater to use dance choreography, which she originally learned from study under Tamara Karsavina, and from closely watching and following Anna Pavlova.

After a successful amateur career in 1936 Sonja Henie turned professional and embarked on a highly successful career in Hollywood, starring in a series of popular films that further increased the popularity of ice skating. At the peak of her acting career, she was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. In addition to her Hollywood appearances, Henie toured North America with her own professional show. Henie adopted the short skirt in figure skating, and the wearing of white boots, which deemphasized the heaviness of skates and produced a lighter and longer appearance of the skater's legs that was 'a focal point for judges' and spectators' gaze'. Upon white boots becoming standard wear for female skaters, Henie, to be different then changed to wearing beige boots.
The costumes Henie wore in her shows and films, were short, revealing, full of sequins and feathers, more relative to costumes of female performers, than those usually worn at the time in world competitive figure skating.

Figure skating writer and historian Ellyn Kestnbaum credits Henie with transforming figure skating into what she calls 'a spectacle of the skater's body' and for 'shifting [the sport's] meanings firmly in the direction of femininity.' In addition to her film career at Fox from 1936 to 1943, Henie formed a business arrangement with Arthur Wirtz, who produced her touring ice shows under the name of 'Hollywood Ice Revue'. Henie broke off her arrangement with Wirtz in 1949/50, and became better known in England from her skating performances at the 'Sonja Henie Ice Revue' at The Blackpool Ice Dome. Such performance continued in USA in the early 1950's by venues like the Roxy Theatre in New York.

We are grateful to John Croft for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. The present lot is listed in the online catalogue of Laura Knight's work under cat. no. 0393.