A. R. Penck
(1939– )German painter, born in Dresden. He was born Ralf Winckler and took on his pseudonym in 1968, deriving the name from the geographer and Ice Age researcher Albrecht Penck (1858–1945), ...
Adam Mickiewicz
(1798–1855),the outstanding poet of Poland, and the founder of the Romantic movement in Polish literature. Born and educated in Vilna, he was exiled in 1829, and lived thereafter mainly ...
agitprop
Formed from the title of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda founded in 1920 in Soviet Russia, Agit-prop was intended to control the ideological thinking of the masses. Agit-prop trains toured ...
AKhRR
A Russian artists' association founded in Moscow in 1922. Its first group show, held in that year, was entitled ‘Exhibition of Pictures by Artists of the Realist Direction in Aid of the Starving’, ...
Aleksandr Deineka
(1899–1969).Soviet painter and graphic artist. Deineka served with the Red Army and studied at Kharkov Art School 1915–17 and Vkhutemas (Higher Artistic and Technical Studios) 1921–5. In 1925 he ...
Aleksandr Tairov
(1885–1950)Russian/Soviet director. After a period as an actor, Tairov's first important post was at Mardzhanov's Free Theatre in 1913, where he directed his future wife Koonen in Schnitzler's The ...
Aleksei Arbuzov
(1908–86)Soviet/Russian playwright. Arbuzov trained as an actor before turning to dramatic writing in the 1930s. His play Tanya (1938) exemplifies the demands of socialist realism for ‘conflictless’ ...
Alexander Gerasimov
(b Kozlov [now Michurinsk], 12 Aug. 1881; d Moscow, 23 July 1963).Russian painter, stage designer, architect, and administrator, a dominant figure in Soviet art. He painted various types of ...
Alexander Rodchenko
(1891–1956)A leading avant‐garde designer of the Russian Revolutionary period, Rodchenko was widely known for his Constructivist work across a variety of creative fields including posters, packaging, ...
American Artists' Congress
An activist, left-wing group organized during the Depression to promote artists' interests and to combat war, repression, and fascism. Founded early in 1936, it quickly found widespread support for ...
Anatoly Lunacharsky
(1875–1933)Russian/Soviet dramatist, critic, and the Soviet Union's first cultural commissar (1917–29). Lunacharsky's tastes were cosmopolitan; in a book of essays (1908), he rubbed shoulders with ...
Andrzej Panufnik
(b Warsaw, 24 Sept. 1914; d Twickenham, 27 Oct. 1991).Polish-born British composer. He studied composition in Warsaw, Paris and London, and conducting in Vienna with Weingartner. During World War ...
Arkadi Shaikhet
(1898–1959), Russian photojournalist.After service with the Red Army he worked as a photo retoucher in Moscow, then as a photographer with publications like Rabochaya Gazeta and Ogonyok. He ...
Arkady Rylov
(1870–1939)Russian painter and graphic artist, active mainly in St Petersburg/Leningrad, where he studied (1894–7) and later taught (1918–29) at the Academy. He was primarily a landscape painter and ...
Artists International Association
(AIA)An association of left-wing British artists founded in London in 1932 with the aim of achieving ‘the unity of artists against Fascism and war and the suppression of culture’. Originally it was ...
avant-garde
(Fr. ‘vanguard’).Term used in the arts to denote those who make a radical departure from tradition. In 20th‐cent. mus., Stockhausen may be regarded as avant‐garde, but not Shostakovich.
ballet and theatrical dance
1. Origins to 1830Ballet as an element of theatrical performance originates directly in the court entertainments of Renaissance Italy, where princely and ducal houses rivalled each other in the ...
biomechanics
Practice for training actors developed by Meyerhold in 1922. Deriving from mime and the commedia dell'arte, it sought to generate emotion and ‘reflex excitability’ from physical exercises.Terry ...
Blue Blouse collectives
Agitprop drama groups formed throughout the Soviet Union during the 1920s. Their name derived from the colour of the acting overalls they wore, in preference to conventional theatrical costume. The ...
Bolshoi Ballet
A Moscow ballet company, established since 1825 at the Bolshoi Theatre, where it staged the first production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (1877).
