Dancers: Napierska (I)

Max Pollak

While in Vienna Max Pollak became involved in the avant-garde dance scene. He did a series of intaglio portraits of dancers, usually costumed and posed, from one of their noted performances. He is sometimes credited with being "the first etcher to turn his attention to the dance as a subject."

Silent film actress and dancer Violetta (a.k.a. Violette) Napierska was born around the turn of the 20th century in Germany. Much of her relatively short career was spent in Berlin working on silent films with Lee Parry, Richard Eichberg, and Bela Lugosi, from the years 1919 to 1926. She then moved to France to film Rene La Somptier's "The Small Parisian" with George Biscot; following this, she retired from the silent film industry.

With the advent of sound in film, Napierski made a handful of support character appearances in "talkies" in the 1930s, and later in the Italian film "La Vena d'Oro" (1955), her last known professional act which is also apparently the last record of her whereabouts. Her death date remains unknown.

She had a brief affair with Lugosi, at which time he penned a poem as their affair came to a close (perhaps due to her relocation): "My Darling Violetta, Slumber envelops your beautiful face / And a dream grips your soul in embrace; I will guard you. You are my dream every night, every day / And regardless of where you might stay, I will seek you. Then, when you want to forget all the world / And fly to my arms like a bird, I will love you. Signed, Bela". The Los Angeles-based band Darling Violetta takes their name from this poem.