CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/4/2019

'Lincoln Kirstein's Modern' presents the many complex facets of a 20th-century Renaissance Man

"Most people fall in love with the dance because of something they have seen. In Lincoln Kirstein's case it was because of something he didn’t' see—a 1916 performance of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Boston with the company's star, Vaslav Nijinsky. As it turned out, Nijinsky probably wasn't dancing that evening. But his image set the nine-year-old Kirstein on a decades-long quest to find the 'magic' that his mother had unwittingly denied him by not taking him to the performance at the Boston Opera House that evening." So begins Lynn Garafola's essay in Lincoln Kirstein's Modern, published to accompany the show that's currently on view at MoMA. The rest, as they say, is history. Featured image is a set design by Paul Cadmus for the ballet "Filling Station" (1937).