Research Seminar Series - Aleksandr Golovin & Vsevolod Meyerhold in 1914 - 1917

Join us for the latest in our autumn research seminar series when we welcome speaker Dr Vera Pavlova, Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies.

Russian art of the decade that combined World War I, the Russian February Revolution and the Russian October Revolution tended to intentionally escape from direct links to the war. However, it doesn’t mean that Russian culture ignored such a dramatic event: war in reality was absorbed and echoed by ‘peaceful’ art that represented a symptomatic escape (intentional or unintentional) from war-related topics and at the same time a tragic search of war contemporaries for the answers in classic and modern narratives that were not related to the theme of war at first glance.

One of the contemporaries was Aleksandr Golovin, a leading Russian artist of the early 20th century and a co-author of Diaghilev’s productions. His artistic biography was related to his role as the chief stage designer of the Imperial Theatres (1902-1917). There he met with a stage director Vsevolod Meyerhold and together they created a number of theatre productions. Their collaborative work resulted in such theatre performances as “The Storm”, 1916, “Mascarade”, 1917 and others (where Golovin’s set and costume designs could be considered both as a part of shows and independent pieces of art).

Vera Pavlova analyses Golovin’s works in Alexandrinsky Theatre in 1914-1917 and his collaboration with Meyerhold, presenting Golovin not only as a masterful painter and decorator, but also as an architect of theatre space. The study aims to show how the manner and aesthetics of the artist, that combined modernism and symbolism and developed in his designs for Alexandrinsky Theatre, visually and emotionally reflected a dramatic decade and, in particular, the complicated years of World War I and the Russian Revolution.

The venue for this talk is seminar room B.22 in the Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds. See here for a campus map.
The event is free and all are welcome.

This seminar is in connection with of Legacies of War, organised by the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies as part of the autumn research seminar series