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In-Depth Information
Like other similarly inclined artists, Rodchenko
was particularly active in the first years after the
OCTOBER REVOLUTION
of 1917. In 1918, he served
as the founder and first director of the Museum
of Artistic Culture, as well as the Soviet govern-
ment's Committee of Applied Arts. During the
Russian civil war, he taught at the seminal artis-
tic workshops known as Vhutemas. In the 1920s
Rodchenko became known for his collages and
photomontages and found steady work at Soviet
publishing houses as a graphic artist, designing
posters and book covers, including several for
his friend the poet Vladimir
MAYAKOVSKY
.He
designed the sets for Mayakovsky's 1929 play,
The Bedbug.
Rodchenko also worked in film, first
collaborating with Dziga
VERTOV
in his newsreel
series Kino-Pravda, and then between 1927 and
1930 as “constructor-artist” for films such as
Boris Barnet's
Moscow in October
and
The Woman
Journalist.
Rodchenko traveled abroad only once during
his lifetime, to the 1925 Paris Arts Deco Exhibi-
tion, where his design of a model “workers'
club” was awarded four silver medals. Tainted by
accusations of “formalism” from the Soviet cul-
tural establishment, his work became more con-
ventional after 1930. In the 1930s he returned
to painting, both figurative and abstract, but was
not allowed to exhibit, even as his photography
was shown. Rodchenko was able to avoid the
repression and terror that fell on some of the
other leading figures of the postrevolutionary
artistic world and died in Moscow on March 12,
1956.
archaeologist. He first gained notoriety through
his stage designs, based on Old Russian themes,
for Sergei
DIAGHILEV
's productions of the Polovt-
sian Dances, a scene from
Prince Igor
(1909), and
The Rite of Spring
(1913), both of which were
staged in Paris. He also designed sets for the Mo-
scow Art Theater and Zimin's Private Opera that
were distinguished by his meticulous attention to
historical detail. From 1902, Roerikh took an
active part in the
MIR ISKUSSTVA
movement, and
in 1910 he was elected its chairman. Roerikh and
his family traveled widely, moving back and forth
from Russia with relative ease. From 1916, he
lived in Finland and other Scandinavian coun-
tries. During 1920-23 he toured the United
States with his pictures and enjoyed great success
there, and developed a substantial following
among those attracted to the mystical themes of
his art. In 1923, Roerikh and his family went on
an anthropological expedition to Central Asia,
Mongolia, and Tibet. From 1928, he lived in the
Himalayas at Kullu, near Simla, where he estab-
lished the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute,
devoted to the botanical, ethnolinguistic, and
anthropological study of the area. Convinced
that culture and peace were prerequisites for
each other, he spent much time promoting an
international convention that would protect cul-
tural treasures during times of war. Influenced by
the example of the Red Cross banner, Roerikh
suggested that a Banner of Peace, which he
designed, be flown over cultural treasures. His
efforts bore fruit in April 1935 when the then 21
members of the Pan-American Union signed the
Roerich Pact at the White House, a treaty that
still remains in force. Roerikh died at Kullu. A
Roerich Museum exists in New York City.
Roerikh, Nikolai Konstantinovich
(1874-1947)
(Nicholas Roerich)
artist and designer
Born in St. Petersburg, Roerikh (sometimes
spelled Roerich) was a prolific and original
painter, who painted close to 7,000 pictures, and
a man of extremely wide interests. He graduated
from St. Petersburg University and the Academy
of Fine Arts but began his professional life as an
Romanov dynasty
The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia from 1613
until the Russian Revolution of 1917 that abol-
ished the Russian monarchy. The death without
issue in 1598 of Czar
FEODOR I
, son of
IVAN IV
the
Terrible, marked the end of the line of the
Rurikids, who claimed to trace their ancestry
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