The McNay Art Museum turns to its Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts to recontextualize an early 20th-century ballet company in "Women Artists of the Ballets Russes: Designing the Legacy."

Original costumes, set and costume designs and archival photographs chronicle the dance company’s history and shine the spotlight on the often-overlooked creative contributions and legacies of artists Natalia Gontcharova, Sonia Delaunay and Alexandra Exter and dancer and choreographer Bronislava Nijinska.

The McNay pairs its holdings with costumes, designs, and ephemera on loan from other institutions, offering deeper insight into the objects on view and the women artists who created them. The exhibition also reunites several designs with their realized costume and set pieces for the first time in nearly a century.

The exhibition focuses on the legacy that the famed dance company and these women had on ballet in the U.S., highlighting dancers of color who found historic opportunities with the companies that emerged in the wake of the Ballets Russes. Personal ephemera mark their historic accomplishments in light of the contemporary issues of representation on stage.

Among these women are ballerinas Sono Osato and Raven Wilkinson, the first Asian American and the first African American to dance with a major company respectively, and Maria Tallchief who was taught by Nijinska and would become the first Native American prima ballerina.