avant-garde artist, cubofuturist, painter, film artist
Vadym Meller (1884–1962) was born into an aristocratic family. The artist's father, George Meller, was Swedish, and his mother, Helena Caruso, had Italian-Greek roots. He entered the history of Ukrainian art primarily as a constructivist scenographer and one of the organizers of the Berezil Art Association. Meller received a thorough European education, took an active part in the formation of a new European type of artistic creativity. His work stands out against the background of the works of other Ukrainian theater artists due to its artistic perfection, the combination of elegant form and exquisite composition.
In 1903, following the example of his father, the future artist entered the law faculty of Kyiv University of St. Volodymyr. While studying at the university, Meller attended the Kyiv Art School as a free student. In 1905, Meller studied in Switzerland, at the Geneva Art School. After graduating from Kyiv University (1908), he went to Germany. For several months he studied at the private school of Heinrich Knirr. In 1909, he entered the Munich Academy of Arts, where he studied in the studio of Angelo Janka. Of course, the artistic environment of Munich with its exhibitions, theaters, and galleries became a continuation of artistic education. Meller got close to the creative group of expressionist artists "Blue Horseman", hung out with the founder of abstractionism Wassily Kandinsky. After graduating from the Academy with honors, Meller moved to France in 1912. There he entered the Free Workshops, attended the class of the famous sculptor Antoine Bourdel, a student of Auguste Rodin.
In 1918, Meller returned to Kyiv and naturally gravitated to the studio of Alexandra Ekster, whom he had met in Paris. The studio served as a creative club and meeting place for artists. In 1919, Bronislava Nizhynska opened her first avant-garde School of Movement in Kyiv, which was located near Alexandra Ekster's studio. Vadim Meller was engaged in the design of choreographic compositions for the School of Movement — he made sketches that were to be "animated" by the dancers.
Meller's first scenographic works were carried out for the plays "Maitre Patlen" and "The Marriage of Figaro" in the Oleksiy Smirnov Theater (Kyiv, 1919) and the design of "Mazepa" by Yulius Slovatskyi in the First State Theater named after T. Shevchenko (Kyiv, 1920). While designing these performances, the artist did not stop creative cooperation with Bronislava Nizhynska.
From 1921 to 1923, Vadim Meller participated in the productions of the group of artists named after Hnat Mykhailichenko "The Art of Action" directed by the young director Mark Tereshchenko. Initially, it was the Central Studio, which opened in December 1920 and had different departments: music, drama, choreography. Meller headed the art department, where he actively shared the secrets of creative skill. Tereshchenko's fundamentally new artistic method was the introduction of collective creativity: the actor had to free himself from the dictates of the director, the pressure of the author and the artist, in order to become a free creator, a universal artist who defines his own performance. In 1921, under the direction of Tereshchenko, the composition "The Sky is Burning" was performed, based on the poems of Oleksa Slisarenko, Mykhailo Semenko and Geo Shkurupia. Here Meller tried himself not only as an artist, but also as a "movement leader". The composition was performed without scenery (Meller designed only the costumes), without dialogues, several groups acted on the stage, which "with certain schematic gestures imitated the process of factory, mining work, struggle and showed collective reflexes during the uprising and victory," wrote an anonymous critic in the Kharkiv to the newspaper "Visti" during the theater tours.
On March 30, 1922, Vadym Meller became a co-founder of the Berezil Art Association. Möller's skill and experience in scenography, his innovation, knowledge of Western European art inevitably led him to a creative collaboration with Les Kurbas, which spanned the years 1922–1933. Kurbas rallied around him the most talented actors of the theater business, enthusiastic about the idea of creating a theater unseen by the Ukrainian audience. A sharp sense of modernity, an understanding of the high purpose of art, professional culture and creative energy, and most importantly, a European worldview immediately made Meller one of the main figures in the new team.
The period of 1922–1924 is the golden age of expressionism in "Berezol". The first such performance was Georg Kaiser's drama "Gas", in which Kurbas made the working masses the main characters. The scenery for "Gas" consisted of various platforms for the unfolding of the action, it created a polyphony of movements, it was itself an element of rhythms of forms and structures that intensified the action.
Meller became the founder of constructivism in the Ukrainian theater. On the stage of "Birch", his designs were active characters of the stage action ("Gas", "Jimmy Higgins"). At the border of the first and second seasons, a model workshop was created in "Berezol" under the leadership of the chief artist of the theater, Vadym Meller. In the summer of 1923, Meller brought here his third-year students from the Kyiv Art Institute: Valentina Shklyaeva, Maya Simashkevich, Dmytro Vlasyuk, Yevhen Tovbin, Moisei Ashkinazi, Mira Panadiadi, A. Protsenko. It was the first school of theater artists in Ukraine, where they had the opportunity to learn the profession and practice next to the best scenographer in the leading theater of the country. The talent of young artists was formed under the influence of Möller's innovative ideas, which was of great importance for the emergence of new artistic traditions.
For eleven years, Meller together with his students staged almost all of Berezil's plays, except for two - "Fiesco's Conspiracy in Genoa" (art. Nisson Shifrin) and "Martin Borulya" (art. Borys Kosarev). If the names of young directors or artists are indicated in the posters, it is clear that they performed their work under the close supervision of their teachers.
In 1925, Vadym Meller's stage design for the MOB play "Secretary of the Trade Union" by L. Scott, directed by Boris Tyahn, was awarded a gold medal at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris. Then Meller was invited to participate in the International Theater Exhibition in New York.
The first four years of the existence of "Berezol" were extremely fruitful. Kurbas staged several high-profile plays, shot three films with Meller at the VUFKU film studio ("Jimmy Higgins", "McDonald", "Arsenalites"). In 1926, in recognition of the theater's creative achievements, "Berezil" was transferred to Kharkiv, then the capital of Ukraine. Meller lived in apartment 56 in the famous Slovo building in Kharkiv.
Program productions of "Beresol" in stage design by Vadym Meller: "Gas" by H. Kaiser, directed by L. Kurbas (1923), "Jimmy Higgins" by E. Sinclair, directed by L. Kurbas (1923), "Macbeth" by V. Shakespeare, directed by L. Kurbas (1924), "The Golden Belly" by F. Krommelinka, directed by L. Kurbas (1926), "The Mikado" by A. Sullivan, directed by V. Inkizhynov (1927), "People's Malachy" by M. Kulish, directed by L. . Kurbas (1928), "Hello, on the wave 477!" text and staging by the creative team (1929), Mykola Kulish's "Mina Mazaylo", directed by L. Kurbas (1929), "Dictatorship" by I. Mykitenko, directed by L. Kurbas (1930), "The Landlord" by I. Karpenko-Karoy, directed by V. Sklyarenko (1932), "Maklena Grasa" by Mykola Kulish, directed by L. Kurbas (1933).
1934 was a turning point in Vadym Meller's work. After the removal of Les Kurbas from the duties of the artistic director of the "Berezil" theater and dismissal from his job, the reorganization of the theater began. In the artist's work, a transition to more realistic means of expression is planned. In 1948, Meller held the position of chief artist of the Kyiv Theater of Musical Comedy, in 1953-1959, he was the chief artist of the I. Franko Kyiv Theater. In parallel, he engaged in easel painting (a significant part of his previous work was destroyed during the war), book graphics.
.png)
