Creativity of the artist Sergey Y. Sudeikin, painting

After the October Revolution, the artist lived in the Crimea for two years, then a year in Tiflis and Baku, after which he emigrated to France – his path lay from Batumi, through Marseille, and in 1919 the artist moved to Paris. There he becomes a set designer: he collaborates with the Bat and Balaganchik theaters. The whole activity of these theaters was due to Sudeikin. D.Z. Kogan, who studied the heritage of the artist, notes that the creative principles of the artist largely influenced and determined the activities of the theater. “Here is a light genre with a claim to the meaningful“ fooling ”, and stylization, and lightweight grotesque, and the sharpness of shifts and displacements, and confusion of theater and life, truth and lies, and the combination of earthiness and sublimity. The sketches and programs designed by him were popular among Russian emigration mainly due to the “Russian national style”.
In Paris, draws ballet performances for the troupe A. Pavlova (ballet “Fairy Dolls” and “Sleeping Beauty”). Participates in the Russian group exhibition in the Paris gallery “Dancy”. In exile work in the theater continues to be the main business of the artist.
Then, with the Baliyev troupe, Sudeikin moved to the USA, where in 1922 he settled in New York. At this stage of his career, it is important to note his participation in Russian exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum in New York and at the Carnegie Institution in Pittsburgh.
In the 1920s – 1930s. the artist works mainly for theaters: Metropolitan Opera: ballets I.F. Stravinsky, operas H.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, R. Wagner, MP Mussorgsky, V. Mozart. In addition, it collaborates with the troupes of J. Balanchine, M. Mordkin and M. Fokin. The theatrical performances that Sudeikin happened to form during these years reflect his desire to be in the trend of advanced European trends and clearly demonstrate attempts to adapt new techniques to their activities. One of these trends is the confluence of the theater and everyday life when “life was being dramatized,” and “theater was being used”. For the artist, this was expressed in the following: he was at the same time suffering to the concreteness of life on the verge of objectivism and to the maximum theatrical convention. A significant place in the work of the artist took the design works of I. Stravinsky. Petrushka was especially close to the artist due to his world-artistic nature and balagan nature. This performance is “characteristic and spicy, intense, teasing, inviting brightness of judicial colors, sparkling in their artificiality and skill.”
With the design of The Magic Flute for the Metropolitan Opera, the fairy-tale, fantastic world, a combination of aristocratic art and folk, lyricism and irony, is clearly visible. The character of fine decisively combines the stylization of German and French Rococo and Baroque with the motifs of ancient Egypt.
During the 30s. Sudeikin maintains a reputation as a prolific theater artist.
In addition to the theater, Serey Sudeikin was engaged in easel painting, made decorative panels, wrote portraits. In his work the principles of the “World of Art”, cubism and expressionism are difficultly intertwined. On the whole, Sudeikin’s easel creativity undergoes all the same processes as theatrical decoration. Here he also tries to go through all the temptations of modern art. Among the famous easel paintings of the artist occupy a special place: “Depression”, “Russian Idyll”, “American Panorama”. The painting “My Life” (1940s, private collection, New York) became a peculiar result of the artist’s creative journey. The final chord of the artist’s biography abroad, the finishing touch to the picture of his life: the master in front of the easel, life as a theater, allies in the person of S.P. Dygileva, N.F. Baliyev, and also Anna Pavlova in the artist’s palette.
Further important events in the artist’s life should be noted two exhibitions:
1929 – personal exhibition at the Carnegie Institute;
1933 – personal exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum Public Library.
1934-39 – holds a series of solo exhibitions in galleries in New York and Los Angeles.
In 1934-35, the artist performed the scenery for the Hollywood film adaptation of “Resurrection” L.N. Tolstoy. Judging by the photographs of the sketches, the artist most successfully managed to convey the features of the life of the Russian province, but the impression of the prison is somewhat “Americanized” and the architecture of St. Petersburg seems implausible. The lack of proper expressiveness and proper reading of the novel was probably the result of the artist’s long stay away from his homeland, which led to the emergence of estrangement.
The last years of his life Sudeikin was seriously ill. In 1946, the artist died.
Buried at the Brooklyn Cemetery in New York. One of his last wishes was the transfer of his entire creative heritage to his homeland.