Dmitriev, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Born July 31 (Aug. 13), 1900, in Moscow; died there May 6, 1948. Soviet scenery designer and artist. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1944).

Dmitriev studied in the Petrograd Free Art Workshops (1918-21) with K. S. Petrov-Vodkin. He designed sets for the staging of Gorky’s Egor Bulychov and Others (1932, E. Bakhtangov Theater, Moscow), Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1937), Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1940), and A. N. Ostrovskii’s The Last Victim (1944, State Prize of the USSR, 1946). All except the first were performed in the Moscow Art Theater, where Dmitriev was the main artist from 1941 to 1948. At the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Dmitriev designed the scenery for Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades (1931, 1944) and Serov’s The Power of the Enemy and Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (both produced in 1948, State Prize of the USSR, 1948 and 1949). He also designed the set for Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans (1945, State Prize of the USSR, 1946) at the S. M. Kirov Theater of Opera and Ballet in Leningrad. His subtle and picturesque scenery was able to capture the spirit of an epoch and create a vivid psychological atmosphere. Dmitriev was awarded the Badge of Honor and other medals.