Richard Buckle | |
---|---|
Born | Warcop, Westmorland, United Kingdom | 6 August 1916
Died | 12 October 2001 Salisbury, United Kingdom | (aged 85)
Occupation(s) | Ballet critic, author, editor, playwright |
(Christopher) Richard Sandford Buckle CBE (6 August 1916 – 12 October 2001), was a lifelong English devotee of ballet, and a well-known ballet critic. He founded the magazine Ballet in 1939.
Early life
Buckle was the only son of Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Galbraith Buckle, DSO, MC, of the Northamptonshire Regiment,[1][2][3] and his wife Rose, daughter of Francis Marmaduke Henry Sandford (descended from the Dukes of Portland and Barons Brooke) and his wife Constance Georgina (née Craven), great-granddaughter of the soldier William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven and maternal granddaughter of the naval commander and politician Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke.[4] They lived at the Old Cottage, Warcop, Cumberland.[5]
The Buckle family consisted of minor gentry descended from Sir Cuthbert Buckle, Lord Mayor of London in 1593–1594. Buckle's uncle (married to his father's sister) was the clergyman Eric Graham.[6][7] His father was killed in 1918 – Buckle was raised (and doted upon) by his mother and a number of female relations, including his paternal grandmother, Lily Buckle of Eden Gate, Warcop.[5] Though raised in "genteel poverty", Buckle was interested in his extensive network of relations (some of them high aristocracy) and formed some close relationships with them. He contributed some genealogy to U and Non-U Revisited in 1978.[5] He was educated at Marlborough College, then went to Balliol College, Oxford, to read modern languages, where he failed to obtain a scholarship and left after a year.[8][9] He then attended the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London for a short time, having developed an interest in ballet,[8] to which he dedicated himself, although his family had hoped he would pursue a stable career in banking – or even in the stage design he had studied.[10]
Career
Buckle founded the magazine Ballet in 1939, and revived it after the Second World War, in which he served with the Scots Guards, being mentioned in despatches in 1944 during the Italy campaign. Between 1948 and 1955 he was ballet critic for The Observer. He organised a number of successful exhibitions, notably one in 1954 on the life and work of Diaghilev, first at the Edinburgh Festival and then at Forbes House in London, and the quatercentenary Shakespeare exhibition at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1964–1965. His publications include comprehensive biographies of Nijinsky (1971) and Diaghilev (1979). He edited several books, including the autobiography of Lydia Sokolova and the selected diaries of Cecil Beaton. Richard Buckle was appointed CBE in 1979.
Later life
Having begun to suffer from poor health (yet producing some of his best work – the biographies of Nijinsky and Diaghilev – during this period),[8] Buckle left London in 1976 and settled in Wiltshire in an isolated cottage, made more so by the fact that he did not drive. After recovering from a heart attack in 1979, he concentrated on his autobiographical works. He regularly visited his home village of Warcop, Cumbria, in the 1980s, sharing his recollections of the place fifty years earlier.[5]
Selected writings
- John Innocent at Oxford, Chatto & Windus (1939)
- Ballet, Ballet Publications Ltd (magazine 1939–1952)
- Katherine Dunham: her dancers, singers and musicians, Ballet Publications (1949)
- The Adventures of a Ballet Critic, Cresset Press (1953)
- Epstein: An Autobiography by Richard Buckle, Art Treasures Book Club (1955)
- In Search of Daighilev, Sidgwick & Jackson (1955)
- Modern Ballet Design, Macmillan (1955)
- The Prettiest Girl in England: the love story of Mrs Fitzherbert's Niece, John Murray (1958)
- Dancing for Diaghilev: The Memoirs of Lydia Sokolova, John Murray (1960); editor
- Harewood: a New Guide to the Yorkshire Seat of the Earls of Harewood, English Life Publications (1965)
- Nijinsky, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1971), ISBN 0-297-00452-2
- U & Non-U Revisited, Debrett's Peerage (1978), ISBN 0-905649-17-6; editor
- Diaghilev, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1979), ISBN 0-297-77506-5
- Buckle at the Ballet: Selected Criticism, Dance Books (1980), ISBN 0-903102-53-6; reviewed in The New York Times, 21 August 1981[11]
- The Most Upsetting Woman (Autobiography 1), Collins (1981), ISBN 0-00-216326-8
- In the Wake of Diaghilev (Autobiography 2), Collins (1982), ISBN 0-00-216544-9
- George Balanchine: Ballet Master (with John Taras), Hamish Hamilton (1988), ISBN 0-241-12180-9
References
- ^ Aisne 1918, David Blanchard, Pen and Sword Military, 2015, p. 199.
- ^ CWGC. "Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Galbraith Buckle | War Casualty Details 2742523". CWGC. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ "Christopher Galbraith Buckle - Pages of the Sea".
- ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage 2003, vol. 1, p. 948.
- ^ a b c d "Ballet critic one of Warcop's more improbable sons". Archived from the original on 6 July 2019.
- ^ Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, Armorial Families 1, 7th ed., London: Hurst & Blackett, 1929–1930, p. 251.
- ^ John Burke and John Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, 1st edition, vol. I, pp. 154–155.
- ^ a b c Strong, Roy (12 October 2001). "Obituary: Richard Buckle". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ "Richard Buckle". 19 October 2001.
- ^ "Richard Buckle Critic, curator, and biographer who reignited interest in Diaghilev and influenced the future of exhibition design". 20 October 2001.
- ^ "Books of the Times". The New York Times. 21 August 1981.
External links
- Obituary, Richard Buckle, the ballet critic, author and exhibition organiser has died aged 85, The Telegraph, October 19, 2001
- Obituary, Ballet critic who revolutionised exhibition design and wrote biographies of Diaghilev and Nijinsky, The Guardian, October 13, 2001
- Richard Buckle Papers at the Harry Ransom Center
- British music critics
- British theatre critics
- Ballet critics
- Dance critics
- Dance writers
- 1916 births
- 2001 deaths
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- People educated at Marlborough College
- Alumni of the University of Oxford
- Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
- British Army personnel of World War II
- Scots Guards soldiers
- People from Warcop
- Military personnel from Cumbria