Culture
Ladyzhensky was trained as a stage designer, and he painted theater scenery throughout the 1930s. His professional theater work informed his choice of medium – tempera paint – and his approach to imagery and color. The theater was also, as shown here, a favored subject to paint.
These paintings are specific and illustrative of cultural life in Odessa in the 1920s, in the midst of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Movies Come to Town depicts the filming of a scene from the 1925 film Jewish Luck on the Odessa Steps – a moment Ladyzhensky may have seen first-hand.
Bandura-Players Have Come to the School depicts musicians performing with a traditional Ukrainian stringed instrument. The scene is depicted from a strange, elevated and back-stage perspective – we see the spectators’ faces, but not those of the performers. In contrast, I am Syoma Alabaster—Tonight’s MC takes place from the perspective of the audience. Ladyzhensky illustrates his own changing relationship to theater performances: from audience member to stage designer.
Yefim Ladyzhensky
Bandura-Players Have Come to the School
1974
Collection of Leonid and Irene Kelner
Yefim Ladyzhensky
I am Syoma Alabaster—Tonight’s MC
1977
Collection of the artist’s family
“The auditorium felt like a dark, dank cellar and the stage – a continuation of the sunny outdoors, which we’d left coming inside the theater. The music made the stage look even more alive, far more ornate and more inviting than the street we’d left behind.”
Yefim Ladyzhensky
An Accident on the Rails
1974
Collection of the artist’s family
The posters in the foreground advertise two plays by Odessan writers: Sunset by Isaac Babel, and Squaring the Circle by Valentin Kataev. These titles harken back to Ladyzhensky’s early work as a stage designer.
Yefim Ladyzhensky
Death Trick
1974
Collection of the artist’s family
“‘Bread and Circuses’: part slogan, part call to action, part heart’s cry, part stomach’s cry, all fused together; they exist both separately and together inside a person. They are not separated, like latitudes separate the globe. They long for each other, like longitudes, from pole to pole.”
Yefim Ladyzhensky
The Movies Come to Town
1974
Collection of David and Kathryn Birnbaum
This painting depicts the filming of a scene from the 1925 film Jewish Luck, which was based on stories by Sholem Aleichem and adapted for film by Isaac Babel. The film stars Solomon Mikhoels, who is shown here descending the Odessa Steps, made famous by the 1925 film Battleship Potemkin. In the foreground, Babel stands beside the cinematographer, Eduard Tisse.
Yefim Ladyzhensky
Our City’s Music Lovers
Date unknown
Collection of Leonid and Irene Kelner
“…Music, like painting, can be long-lasting and tactile. But sounds would not behave for me, unfortunately, whereas line and color obeyed, and my stubborn, tireless efforts did their work.”
