Ballerina, Hollywood Star, and Egyptologist: The Life and Legacy of Natacha Rambova
By J. Attridge, UMFA communications coordinator
The collection at the Utah Museum of Fine Art spans 5,000 years of human creativity (and counting)! The UMFA’s collection of over 22,000 objects is the result of generations of curators, Museum employees, and the generosity of countless donors. One contributor in particular had a profound impact on the Museum, and her portrait is currently on view in the UMFA portrait hall. Natacha Rambova was a ballerina, a Hollywood designer, an actress, one half of a celebrity power couple, and had a serious career in Egyptology. (No, really. She did all that and more. She had almost as many careers as Barbie!) But what does that have to do with the Utah Museum of Fine Arts?
In the 1950s, the UMFA was a small gallery in the University of Utah’s Park Building. Donations made by Natacha Rambova and her mother Winifred Kimball Hudnut (also known as Winifred de Wolf) paved the way for the creation of the Museum as we know it. You’ll see both of their names on the labels of many objects in the galleries, and nearly every object in the Ancient Egyptian collection bears Rambova’s name.
Luke Kelly, associate curator at the UMFA, explains that “One of [Natacha Rambova’s] dreams was to build a museum that focused on symbolism in world religions. She never fulfilled that dream but took comfort in the fact that her objects were in a museum that people could come and visit.” (Daily Utah Chronicle, 2016)
But who was Natacha Rambova?
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, this incredible woman traveled the world, lived many lives, and had many names. In 1926 she was described in Picture Play Magazine as “one of those stunning, perfectly poised, unnervous people who make you feel that talking to you is much more interesting than anything else in the world.”
But how did she become that woman? Keep reading to explore (some) of Natacha Rambova’s incredible life!
The Runaway Ballerina
We begin Rambova’s story in 1916, with a newspaper article from the New York Times. At the time, Rambova (then going by her given name, Winifred de Wolfe) was 19 years old. The portrait below was painted five years earlier when Rambova was still a young teenager.
“A search has been conducted for a month for Miss Winifred de Wolfe, 19 years old, who lived with her mother, Mrs. Edgar de Wolfe, at the Oregon apartments, Seventh Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street. Miss de Wolfe was last seen by her mother on April 26, and since then no trace of her has been found, although the resources of various agencies have been called into use.”
Young Natacha Rambova set her eyes on the stage of the Russian Imperial Ballet. She was rumored to have met the famed dancer Theadore Kosloff at a costume shop shortly before she applied to Kosloff’s studio. Soon after arriving, 19-year-old Rambova and 34-year-old Kosloff’s relationship became romantic. Rambova’s mother was understandably upset. She believed her daughter had been kidnapped and called on various agencies, including the ambassador to Russia, for help bringing Rambova home. (Buffalo Courier)
While dancing with the Russian Imperial Ballet Rambova vacillated between hiding her true identity and flaunting it. During this time, she briefly used the stage name Vera Fredova before settling on Natacha Rambova as her life-long moniker. A 1916 article published by the Chicago Tribune gives insight into Mrs. Edgar de Wolfe’s search for her daughter, going so far as to involve the FBI. Across two separate interviews Rambova both denies and then embraces her true identity, telling one Tribune reporter “her name was just as it [was] printed on the program—that, and nothing else. Was she Miss Winifred de Wolfe of New York? Poof! Ridiculous!” Then, after another performance in the same year, she told another, “Yes, I am Winifred de Wolfe, and I went to Russia and then joined Theodore Kosloff’s dancers in Omaha and my mother didn’t like it very well. That’s all true. But I’m going to stay.” Rambova’s determined and uncompromising personality was a consistent attribute throughout her life.
For the next several years Rambova continued dancing with the company while also designing intricate costumes for them. She lived and traveled with Kosloff, whose career was transitioning to film work.
Following this change to film, Rambova designed sets and costumes in which she incorporated meticulous historical research. Her work was well received, but Kosloff repeatedly claimed her creations as his own. Rambova eventually regained her creative reputation by presenting her work to Russian actress Alla Nazimova and was offered a position as art director for Nazimova’s films.
By this time Rambova’s relationship with Kosloff had soured and she planned to leave him. This era of her life ended in a violent attack. Kosloff shot Rambova just above the knee with a hunting rifle after finding her packing her bags. She escaped but chose not to press charges using the “excuse that she had been shot and scarred by a jealous ballerina as her alibi for not continuing in dance.” (Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova by Michael Morris, pg. 67)
The Hollywood Star
After leaving Theadore Kosloff Rambova recovered completely from her injuries and her career as a Hollywood designer took off. She worked on sets and costumes, focusing on fantastical and meticulously researched historical designs. Rambova was introduced to her next companion, Italian actor and “Latin Lover” Rudolph Valentino, in 1921 during the filming of Uncharted Seas.
“It wasn’t love at first sight,” Rambova would later recall in a 1922 interview with Photoplay. “I think it was good comradeship more than anything else. We were both very lonely, but we had known each other more than six months before we became interested in each other.”
Rambova and Valentino’s relationship became a sensation in popular culture affording Rambova a level of celebrity rarely extended to designers. They married in 1922, not without turmoil, due to the fact that Valentino had not officially divorced his previous wife. Their relationship began to reveal significant differences in their personal aspirations. Valentino had an “old-world” view of home life and wanted a wife who cooked and raised children. Rambova has no desire to have any children.
“He [Rudolph Valentino] knew what I was when I married him. I have been working since I was seventeen. Homes and babies are all very nice, but you can’t have them and a career as well. I intended, and intend, to have a career and Valentino knew it. If he wants a housewife, he’ll have to look again.”
— Natacha Rambova (Morris p. 172)
The Hollywood power couple divorced in 1926, and Rambova would go on to get her first (and last) screen credit as an actress. The film, When Love Grows Cold (1926), was a flop with a review in Picture Play calling it “the poorest picture of the month, or of almost any month, for that matter.” It went on to say that “the interiors are bad, the costumes atrocious. Miss Rambova is not well dressed, nor does she film well, in the slightest degree.”
Rambova did not return to work in film, on screen or behind-the-scenes, after her brief appearance on the silver screen. However, the end of her career in film was the beginning of her career in writing and Egyptology.
The Egyptologist
Throughout her life, Rambova had been interested in the metaphysical. She was fascinated by mythology, symbolism, and comparative religion. In 1946 her interest led her to studying ancient Egyptian tomb inscriptions and scarabs. She was interested in universal symbolism and initially believed she would find evidence of a connection between ancient Egyptian belief systems and those of ancient American cultures. (Breaking Ground: Women in Old World Archaeology).
Rambova had a distinctive interdisciplinary research perspective. “She incorporated into her argument a remarkable knowledge of varied fields, including physics, metaphysics, symbology, cosmology, alchemy, mythology, and numerology.” (Morris, p. 229) Despite her lack of formal academic training, Rambova was able to make notable contributions to the field of Egyptology, and the seriousness of her scholarly career was in no way minimized by her background. (Yale Egyptology) Between 1946 and 1954, Rambova independently studied scarabs, translated the work of noted Egyptologist, Alexandre Piankoff from French to English, and eventually embarked on a research exhibition to Egypt with substantial funding from the Bollingen foundation in Switzerland.
While in Egypt Rambova worked closely with Egyptologist, Alexandre Piankoff. They studied the Valley of the Kings, inscriptions on sarcophagus of Tutankamun, and the Unas pyramid. The photographs and translations their group produced are studied today and can be found in their published works Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations (translated by Piankoff and edited by Rambova) and in Mythological Papyri (featuring a chapter written by Rambova.)
During her trips to Egypt, Rambova collected antiquities which she later donated to the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The provenance of objects from this time period are unique because in the late 1940s a person could legally buy ancient Egyptian objects from licensed dealers in Egypt. This practice ended in 1977. (The Antiquities Trade in Egypt 1880-1930: The H.O. Lange Papers) Rambova’s purchases from such dealers are documented in letters. According to UMFA curator Luke Kelly, Rambova specifically collected objects “that she felt support[ed] her theories on universal symbolism.”
In a way, Rambova was the Museum’s first curator. In addition to donating her collection, she also laid out the displays herself and personally wrote the original labels. Many of the objects she donated, like this Ushabi, are on view again in the Ancient Mediterranean art gallery.
Egyptians believed the spirit (ka) still had mortal needs in the afterlife. A variety of figures accompanied the burial to aid the spirit. The ushabti would provide labor in the afterlife. The inscription on the figure translates to:
“O Ushabti, if the Osiris Nebre is decreed to do any work whatsoever in the afterlife, may all obstacles be cast down in front of him. Here I am, whenever you call, O figures, be ever watchful to work, to plough, and sow the fields, to water the canals and to carry sand from east to west. Here I am ready when you call.”
Explore the Rambova Collection
Rambova’s Legacy and Yours
Rambova’s life was defined by fortitude, curiosity, and creativity; those ideals live-on in her collection at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Her donation of nearly 300 objects helped to transform the UMFA from a small gallery into a museum of global art. Her donation continues to educate and inspire. What pursuits define your life? The UMFA is your fine art Museum, and it can be home to your passions and legacies too.
Consider endowing a part of your story to the UMFA. Even if you don’t have a treasure trove of Egyptian antiquities in your closet, gifts of all sizes and shapes leave a lasting mark on the Museum. Whether you make an art donation, make a monetary donation towards the Museum’s conservation, operation, or education funds, or you donate your time as a volunteer, your gift will help keep creativity and history alive in our region.
Resources and Further Reading
Rambova’s life was full of twists and turns that couldn’t all be included here. Explore more of her life through her writings, her biography by Michael Morris, and a video exploration of the Rambova Collection narrated by Vincent Price!
- Mythological Papyri, featuring Rambova’s chapter on the symbolism of Papyri beginning on page 29
- Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova by Michael Morris
- Beyond Valentino: A Madam Valentino Addendum by Michael Morris and Evelyn Zumaya
- Symbols of Lives Past: The Rambova Collection | Narrated by Vincent Price
Header Image: Pavle “Paja” Jovanovic’ (1859-1957), Serbian, Portrait of Natacha Rambova, Oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Richard A. Hudnut, UMFAR1951.008