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[KUSTODIEV] Kustodiev v teatre [i.e. Kustodiev in Theater]

Bartoshevich, A.

Item #1758

Leningrad: Izd. OSTI, 1927. 48 pp.: ill., 1 portrait. 18x13,5 cm. In original printed wrappers with logo of publisher. Covers slightly faded and worn, signature on t.p., otherwise very good and clean.
One of 1200 copies.

First book on Boris Kustodiev’s stage designs.
Theater critic Andrei Bartoshevich (1899-1949) was preparing the book during Kustodiev’s lifetime, but the book was released posthumously. Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927) became known as a book illustrator, a stage designer and a painter of Russian merchant culture. The monograph distinguishes three stages of his art: 1) an academic period finished with his graduate painting “Village Bazaar” (1903), 2) release from borrowed academic practices, and 3) turning to theatrical design in 1913-1914. Since the childhood, Kustodiev was strongly influenced by folk performances and was looking for similar synthetic art in professional theater. He embarked on the stage design relatively late. He debuted with Ostrovsky’s merchant play “Storm” at the Komissarzhevskaya Theater in 1911. Soon he
started to work at the Moscow Art Theater led by Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko. After the Revolution, he contributed to performances at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater, Maly Theater and
Mariinsky Theater in St Petersburg, Pskov Theater. He won everyone with designing the play “Flea” based on Leskov’s tale for MKhT-2. As director Dikii recalled, “After all, we thought of “Flea” as a farcical performance, a lubok, for some reason arrogantly abandoned in our time. <...> It was decided to ask B. Kustodiev, then already sick, half paralyzed, who lived permanently in Leningrad.
When the box [with sketches] was opened, everyone admiringly gasped. It was so vivid, so precise, that my role as the director who accepted the sketches was reduced to zero – I had nothing to correct or reject”. The book contains a black-and-white photo of production that gives no color but shows a variety of patterns collected on the stage.
Then Kustodiev “went a long way towards expressionism, stopping at a respectful distance from it”. It is seen in his last works: “Wolves and Sheep” (1927) at the Leningrad Academic Drama Theater and “Pigeons and Hussars” (1927) at Moscow Maly Theater. Three photographs of the production “Wolves and Sheep” complement the text.
The book ends with a list of theatrical works by Kustodiev that consists of 25 performances. Apart from photographs, some paintings and a self-portrait are published.

Worldcat shows copies located in Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, California Universities, NYPL.

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