Edris Stannus was born near Blessington, Ireland. At the age of seven, she moved to Kent, England, to live with her grandmother. At 10, she began to take ballet classes; three years later, she joined the Lila Field Academy for Children, where she got training from prominent ballet masters, such as Enrico Cecchetti and Edouard Espinosa. She danced in revues and music halls around London. In those days, ballet dancers had to have French or Russian stage names, so she changed her name to Ninette de Valois. In 1919, 21 years old de Valois received the role of a principal dancer of the Beecham Opera; two years later, she joined the prestigious Ballets Russes as a soloist, performing with the company throughout Europe. In 1924, at 26, she had to take a step back from intense dancing after discovering she had damage from an undiagnosed case of childhood polio. It changed the course of her career, and she decided to open a dancing school. In 1926, she founded the Academy of Choreographic Arts for girls in London and a sister school in Dublin. Only two years later, Lilian Baylis, the owner of the Old Vic Theatre, invited de Valois to provide dancers and coach actors in the theater’s productions. The collaboration was very successful, and in 1931, when Sadler’s Wells Theatre was re-opened, de Valois’ school moved in under a new name – the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. In that same year, she founded the Vic-Wells Ballet Company. In 1956, the company and school were granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth II and renamed the Royal Ballet. In addition to classic ballet production, such as Giselle, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker, de Valois created original choreographies, such as Job, The Rake’s Progress, and Checkmate. In these productions, she withdrew from the traditional Russian convention, creating a distinctly English style of choreography, drawing from English tradition, themes, and sources, preferring British composers, and forming more prominent roles for male dancers. In 1963, at the age of 65, she retired as director of the Royal Ballet but headed the school for several more years. She continued to make public appearances and served as patron of various companies, including the Irish Theatre Ballet, the Cork Ballet Company, and the Irish National Ballet. She died at the age of 102. Read more...

Anna Maria Grosholtz was born in Strasbourg, France. Her father died two months before she was born, and not long after, she and her mother moved to Bern, Switzerland, where her mother found a position as the housekeeper of the physician Philippe Curtius. Curtius made anatomical wax models for teaching purposes and later used his talent as a wax master to create portraits of notable figures. In 1765, he moved to Paris, where he established a wax portraiture firm, and Tussaud and her mother joined him the following year. There, she learned the art of wax modeling and soon began to work as his assistant. At 16, she made her first wax figure; it was of the French philosopher Voltaire. Over the next decade, she created many of her most famous portraits, such as Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1780, at 19, according to her memoirs, she was appointed the art tutor of Princess Elizabeth, Louis XVI’s sister, and lived in Versailles. So, when the French Revolution began, Tussaud, who was considered a royalist, was imprisoned but was released thanks to Curtius’s connections. To prove her allegiance to the Revolution, she had to make death masks for executed nobles, including Marie Antoinette, Maximilien Robespierre, and Princesse de Lamballe. In 1749, Curtius died, and she inherited his wax figures collection and his two museums. In the following year, she married François Tussaud and continued to create wax portraits. In 1802, at 41, she traveled to London to exhibit her collection. During this time, the Napoleonic wars started. Unable to return to Paris, she embarked on a 33 years exhibition tour through England and the British Isles, gaining fame and reputation for her wax figures creations. In 1835, at 74, she settled in London and established a permanent home for her exhibition on Baker Street. Upon her retirement, her son took over the management. She died in her sleep several years later, at the age of 88. In 1883, her grandson, who inherited his father’s role as the art director of the collection, moved the exhibition to Marylebone Road, where it still stands. Throughout the years, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum has grown to become one of the most popular tourist attractions in London and abroad, with more than 20 branches worldwide, including Read more...

Zaha Mohammad Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq, to an upper-class family. Growing up, her family used to visit ancient Sumerian cities, which inspired her interest in architecture, and by the age of 11, she made up her mind to become one. Her parents encouraged her ambition and allowed her to design the interior of their home. In her youth, she attended boarding schools in Switzerland and England, and later she earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. At 22, she moved to London to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture. After graduation, her professor recruited her to his firm in the Netherlands. At 30, Hadid returned to the UK and opened Zaha Hadid Architects firm in London, and later another branch in NYC. At the time, the typical architectural style was postmodernism, and Hadid, with her innovative perspective, was set apart with more colorful and radical designs. In 1983, at the age of 33, Hadid caught international attention when her proposal won in a competition to design The Peak center in Hong Kong, offering a horizontal skyscraper that diagonally moved down the hillside. Even though it was never built, this project established her aggressive geometric and dynamic aesthetic, as was reflected in her following designs proposals for the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, the Düsseldorf Art and Media Centre, and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales. Some of her designs were too avant-garde to be actualized and were displayed as artworks in various museums. In 1993, 43 years old Hadid received her first major-built project for the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The structure, made of glass and concrete, was composed of sharp-angled forms that resemble a bird in flight. This design has launched her career, allowing her to explore her interests in designing dynamic sculptural structures with interconnecting spaces. Many appear in her works from this period, such as the IBA Housing in Berlin, the Mind Zone exhibition space at the Millennium Dome in London, the Land Formation One exhibition space in Weil am Rhein, and the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck. One of Hadid’s biggest successes came when she won the commission to design the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first woman to design an art museum in the US. Opened in 2003, the building, constructed of a series of vertical cubes and voids, was described as “the most important American building to be completed since the cold war.” Hadid continued winning more international competitions, designing buildings in her unique deconstructivist style. Including the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany, for which she won her first Royal Institute of British Architects Award (RIBA) and the Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou, China, with a US$300 million budget. In 2004, at 54, Hadid won the most prestigious award in architecture -­ the Pritzker Architecture Prize, making history as its first female recipient. Her next ambitious projects included the waveform Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi, The National Museum of Arts of the 21st Century in Rome, and the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku. From the beginning of her career, Hadid taught architecture at various institutes, including- the Architectural Association, Cambridge University, and more. She also held the Sullivan Chair professorship at Chicago’s School of Architecture and served on the board of trustees of The Architecture Foundation and the Encyclopædia Britannica Editorial Board. Among the many awards and accolades she received throughout the years, she was named Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Hadid died of a heart attack at the age of 65. Read more...