Toe Shoes Forbidden

Date:	1998
Medium:	Acrylic on paperboard
Size inches:	8 x 8 1/4
Size cm:	20.3 x 21
Signature:	Signed and dated lower right
Location:	Private Collection, New York

 

 

At the end of June I was at Jacob's Pillow with Ellen Robbins for her program of dances by very young choreographers. Ellen used my drawing Toe Shoes Forbidden to illustrate a point she was making in one of her classes about barefoot modern dance -- Terpsichore without even sneakers. It occurs to me that the drawing might make an apt illustration for a New Yorker dance article or as a spot drawing. I enclose a xerox print of the drawing. (George Deem, letter to Joan Acocella, August 6, 2001).

I will keep the xerox (of your drawing "Toe Shoes Forbidden") and hope that I may write a review for which it would be a good illustration. It is very charming. The war between modern dance and ballet is pretty much over -- the Cunningham dancers look as though they are in toe shoes -- but the feelings are still simmering in some quarters. (Joan Acocella, letter to George Deem, October 28, 2001).