Shpinel, Iosif

Born Sept. 25 (Oct. 7), 1892, in Belaia Tserkov’, in what is now Kiev Oblast. Soviet motion-picture designer. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1940).

Shpinel’ graduated from the architectural department of the Kiev Art School in 1914 and from the print-making department of the Vkhutemas. He began to work in the theater in 1921 and in the cinema in 1927. He created designs for the films The Night Coachman (1929), Arsenal (1929), Ivan (1932), Boule de Suif (1934), Petersburg Night (1934), Parisian Dawns (1937), Alexander Nevsky (1938), Mashen’ka (1942), Ivan the Terrible (1945, 1958), The Story of a Real Man (1948), Sisters (1957), The Year 1918 (1958), Gloomy Morning (1959), and A Year Like a Lifetime (1965).

Shpinel’, a teacher since 1928, joined the faculty of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography, becoming a professor in 1965. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1951.