Bidspirit auction | Shaun OBrein Signed PRS Photo

Shaun OBrein Signed PRS Photo - B/W photo of Shaun O'Brien by P.Rankin- Smith mounted on art paper /board and signed on the margin by Shaun O'Brien. The signature is authentic with provenance. Image size : 7.5 x 6 inches. Mount size: 11 x 14 inches. Shaun O’Brien ( 1925 – 2012), one of the country’s most celebrated character dancers, whose four vigorous decades with the New York City Ballet included more than 30 holiday seasons as Herr Drosselmeyer, the kindly eccentric at the heart of The Nutcracker. City Ballet was founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein in 1948, and Mr. O’Brien joined the company the next year as a member of the corps. By the time he retired, in 1991 at the age of 65, he had appeared alongside a Who’s Who of dancers of the entire mid-20th century, including Violette Verdy, Allegra Kent, Patricia McBride, Jerome Robbins, Edward Villella, and Jacques d’Amboise. He owed this longevity, remarkable in ballet, to his having slipped early on — unintentionally but quite happily — into character roles. Few dancers seek such parts, which tend toward grizzled sorcerers rather than dashing princes, but Mr. O’Brien, in the opinion of balletgoers and many critics, invested them with a wordless emotional resonance rarely before seen. Movies: Killer's Kiss