Vadim Georgievich Meller

Vadim Georgievich Meller ( Russian Вадим Георгиевич Меллер ; born April 14 ^{. Jul} / 26. April  1884 ^greg. In Saint Petersburg , † 4. May 1962 in Kiev ) was a Ukrainian-Russian painter of the USSR and avant-garde artists ( Cubism , Constructivism ), Stage designer, book illustrator and architect.

He was the first artist to be awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et industriels moderne ( Art Déco ) (1925 in Paris ).

biography

Meller was the second son of a high-ranking official in the Russian Ministry of Justice . His father, George Meller, came from a Swedish aristocratic family, his mother, Helena Caruso, who was half Italian and half Greek, also came from the nobility.

Meller studied at the University of Kiev between 1903 and 1908 .

In 1905 Meller visited Geneva , where he took private lessons from Franz Roubaud .

In 1908, with the recommendation of Roubaud, his lessons began in a private school for drawing and painting by Heinrich Knirr in Munich . There Meller met the student Paul Klee , who introduced him to the group Der Blaue Reiter .

After graduating from Kiev University in law, Meller attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts between 1908 and 1912 .

During this time, Meller met Wassily Kandinsky , with whom he became friends. Meller's first exhibitions took place after he moved to Paris. There he became a member of the Société des Artistes Indépendants . Meller also studied with Antoine Bourdelle .

Between 1912 and 1914 Meller took part in various exhibitions together with Kasimir Malewitsch , Sonia Delaunay , Alexander Archipenko , Alexandra Exter , including: Salon des Indépendants , Spring Salon, Salon D 'Automne (together with Pablo Picasso , Georges Braque and André Derain ).

After returning to Kiev in 1917, he worked on easel and monumental painting, graphic and costume design. His transition to stage design , which became his main artistic field, took place in the first years after the revolution.

Between 1918 and 1921 Meller worked together with the set designer and dancer Bronislava Nijinska , the sister of Vaslav Nijinsky , in her ballet studio.

In 1922 Les Kurbas invited Meller to the newly founded Beresil Theater .

In 1925 Meller took part in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et industriels modern ( Art Déco ) in Paris together with Sonia Delaunay, Alexandra Ekster and Nathan Altman . There he received the gold medal for his stage design of the Beresil Theater. In the same year Meller also took part in the International Theater Exposition in New York City .

Meller became the leading constructivist of Ukrainian set design. There he worked in a prominent position until 1945.

From 1925 Meller taught together with Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Bogomasow at the Kiev Art Academy . In the same year he became a member of the Association of Revolutionary Artists of Ukraine , together with Dawid Burljuk (co-founder), Alexander Bogomasow (co-founder), Vasily Yermilow , Viktor Palmow and Alexander Chwostenko-Chwostow .

Meller worked as the managing director of the Institute for Monumental Painting and Sculpture of the Academy of Architecture of the Ukrainian SSR (1946–1948), as a lead artist of the Kiev Comedy Theater (1948–1953) and as a lead artist of the Ivan Franko Academy Theater (1953–1959).

He was married to Nina Genke .

swell

• Olga Petrova: Vadym Meller's Expressive Constructivism , pp. 5–32, catalog Avantgarde Adventures , National Museum of Art, (NAMU), Kiev, Ukraine, 2004.
• Meller in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• Mykola Labinskyj and Wiktor Sydorenko: Artists of Ukraine: Encyclopedic Handbook, Institute of Contemporary Art, AMU, 2006, page 375
• Wadim Meller , Zoya Kutcherenko, Mistorstvo, Kiev, 1975.