Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn

1 portrait of Margot Fonteyn

© University of Dundee The Peto Collection

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Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn

by Michael Peto
modern bromide print from original negative, February 1962
15 3/4 in. x 11 3/4 in. (400 mm x 300 mm) image size
Given by University of Dundee - Michael Peto Collection, 2013
Photographs Collection
NPG x137680

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  • Michael Peto (1908-1970), Photojournalist. Artist or producer of 22 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

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Peto's photograph shows Fonteyn and Nureyev in rehearsal for their first performance together at Covent Garden, in Giselle on 21 February 1962. They went on to form one of the greatest ballet partnerships of the century. This study, among many others of the dancers, is included in Peto's book The Dancer's World (1963).

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Events of 1962back to top

Current affairs

After a series of by-election defeats, the prime minister, Harold MacMillan organises a drastic cabinet reshuffle, dismissing one third of his cabinet. Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe's wry comment summed up the desperate action: 'greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life.'
Britain suffers the 'Big Freeze' with no frost-free nights between 22nd December 1962 and 5th March 1963.

Art and science

The Beatles have their first hit with Love Me Do and release their first album Please Please Me.
The new Coventry Cathedral is consecrated and creates a showcase for British artistic talent with the first performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, a wall hanging by Graham Sutherland, stained glass by John Piper, and sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Elizabeth Frink.

International

The world comes to the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In response to the USA's nuclear advantage, the USSR sent missiles to Cuba. The crisis lasted for 12 days before a deal was finally stuck between Khrushchev and Kennedy in which the Cuban missile bases were dismantled in return for the secret removal of US missiles from Turkey.

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