Came across the work of Valentina Mikhailovna Khodasevich. Maybe someone will be interested.
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Biography of Valentina Khodasevich (in Russian):
Place and Date of Birth: Moscow, February 23, 1894
Place and date of death: Moscow, May 25, 1970
Activity /Profession: painter, stage designer
The daughter of a lawyer and art collector, a niece of the poet V. Khodasevich, it is very early in contact with the creative environment. Another girl poses the artist Vasily Ivanovich Komarov, at this portrait that is stored in the Tretyakov Gallery, followed by many other pen artists such as Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Fedor Rerberg and others. After a brief visit to the courses at the Stroganov School in Moscow, from 1908 to 1910, is the practice of drawing and painting studios F. Rerbega. During these years, attending Italian language courses at the Company name Dante Alighieri in Moscow. In 1909, the first is in Italy, visiting Venice and Florence, where it makes a huge impression Botticelli paintings, especially "The Birth of Venus" and "Spring": Italian painter for life remain an inspiration for the way it works.
From 1910 to 1912 worked in Munich and Paris, where moving closer to the members of the "World of Art". In 1913, married artist Andrew Diederiks Romanovich (1884-1942), a friend in Paris, they settled in St. Petersburg. H. takes an active part in the life of avant-garde: in 1915 in Petrograd, along with other artists participating in the exhibition "A Streetcar B", visit art offices N. Dobychina in Moscow participated in the exhibitions of "Jack of Diamonds." In 1917, at the request of Vladimir Mayakovsky, paints the room "Cafe Poetry" (1917) in St. Petersburg, and in 1918 made drawings and sketches of furniture for the cafe uniforms "Pittoresk" in Moscow (1918). During these years, working on book illustrations, and has several portraits, including in 1918 - Portrait of Maxim Gorky. In 1918, the artist agrees to the proposal producer Konstantin of Tver draw play by N. Gumilev 'Tree Transformations ", which premiered held February 6, 1919 in Petrograd Theater Department (PTI). In this work, the artist begins passion theater, which does not leave it until the end of days. In the summer of 1924 during a trip to London with her husband J. decide to go to Sorrento for a visit to Maxim Gorky. To assist spouses in obtaining an Italian visa, please contact Olga Gorki Resnevich-Signorelli, which later will retain a close relationship with Hillary and asked her to mediate between her and Bitter in its translational activity.
Stayed on business to London, then in Paris, the couple get to Sorrento only December 31, 1924, and settled in a villa «Il Sorito» in Capo di Sorrento. Along with Gorky visited Naples and Pompeii. Depart from Sorrento to Rome, where Paul takes them Muratov, which gives them the beauty of the Eternal City.
After her husband's return to Leningrad, H. returned to Sorrento, but receives a letter from Muratov with an invitation to be an artist in tragedy Pirandello, Giovanni Kavikkioli «Lucrezia» (Lucretia), which are going to put in the Roman Theatre and Dell'Arte H. spends in Rome for about three months ( March-May 1925).
Contact with the Italian theater is not the most successful: the absence of the term "director", a small salary, and disorganization in the company (production of "Lucrezia" is canceled) unpleasant affect the artist. But the memory remains in a meeting with Pirandello's "low-growth old man, thin, with a goatee" who entrusted her set and costume designs for the other the play "Henry IV» (1921), suddenly dismissed her without explanation.
After the Roman failure, the causes of which are likely to be found in the impossibility for the theater of Pirandello, funded by the Nazi elite, to ensure the work of a Soviet citizen, the artist returned to Sorrento. During this visit Gorky visited Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Nikolai Benois, a singer Zoya Lody and others, which are held in honor of the literary and musical evenings. In H. received an invitation Sorrento theater Tatiana Pavlova, Sergei Strenkovskim issue the statement, "psyche," YD Belyaev, which premiered at the theater goes Manzoni in Milan, November 22, 1926 When you are finished for Tatiana Pavlova, H. immediately gets a new offer to work on the ballet, preparing for production at Trieste, but rejects it, deciding to return to Leningrad, and the summer of 1925 was leaving Sorrento. Italy remains a source of inspiration for her: in 1927, draws "Rigoletto" by Giuseppe Verdi, Sergei Radloff delivered in the studio at the Leningrad Conservatory. Meanwhile, not interrupted by their correspondence with Gorky until March 1928 she did not come back to Sorrento. It makes a few sketches of neighborhoods of villas «Il Sorito» Bitter and negotiates with the work on his new portrait. But soon after she found typhoid fever, and she had to abandon this plan. After several months of illness, held at Capri, she went to Paris, where the fall of 1928 returned to Leningrad. In the Soviet Union continues to work set designer for theaters in Moscow and Leningrad.
The last of the 150 performances she draws the ballet "Spartacus" by Khachaturian, delivered December 27, 1956 in the Theater. SM Kirov in Leningrad.
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