Biography
She was born on the 14th of November 1922 in Kiev. In 1949, she graduated from the design faculty of VGIK (class of Iosif Shpinel and Fyodor Bogorodsky). She started to work in film in 1947. From 1949 she was designer at the film studio Lenfilm. As a rule, she worked in creative tandem with her husband, an equally well-known film designer, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation, Isaac Kaplan. They worked in theatre as well: the St Petersburg Theatre of Comedy named after N.P. Akimov, St Petersburg State Theatre for Young Audience named after A.A. Bryantsev and others. They participated in multiple collective exhibitions, including Sixty years of Cinema (the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 1955), the All-Soviet Exhibitions of Theatre, Film and Television Artists (the Moscow Manege, Moscow, 1967, 1987), the exhibitions N.V. Gogol in the works of film artists. Sketches and puppets (Cinema Library named after S.M. Eisenstein, Moscow, 2009, posthumously). Their personal exhibitions were held at the Leningrad Department of the Artists’ Union and the Leningrad House of Film (1987, 1994, 1997).In 1991–93, she taught at the design and production faculty at the RATI (GITIS).
Her range of creative output includes almost fifty film works. Most often she worked with directors Joseph Heifetz, Vitaly Melnikov and Igor Maslennikov.
Amongst the screen works she collaborated with I. Kaplan on are such nationally famous films as The Rumyantsev Case (1955, Lenfilm, director J. Heifetz), Old Khottabych (1956, Lenfilm, director G. Kasansky), My Beloved (1958, Lenfilm, director J. Heifetz), The Overcoat (1959, Lenfilm, director A. Batalov), The Lady with the Dog (1960, Lenfilm, director J. Heifetz), The Three Fat Man (1966, Lenfilm, director A. Batalov).
Amongst other works, which are no less famous, are White Sun of the Desert (1969, Lenfilm, Mosfilm, director V. Motyl), Hail, Mary! (1970, Lenfilm, director J. Heifetz), Seven Brides for Private Zbruyev (1971, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), Hello and Goodbye (1972, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), Ksenia, Fedor's Beloved Wife (1974, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), Elder Son (1975, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), The Marriage (1977, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), September Vacation (1979, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Treasures of Agra (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, 1981, 1983, Lenfilm, director I. Maslennikov), Winter Cherry and Winter Cherry-3 (1985, 1995, Lenfilm, director I. Maslennikov), The Royal Hunt (1990, Lenfilm, director V. Melnikov), Marigolds in Flower (1998, Lenfilm, director S. Snezhkin).
She was designer at the production of the television ballets Anyuta (1982, Lenfilm, directors A. Belinsky and V. Vasiliev, choreographer V. Vasiliev) and Chapliniana (1987, Lenfilm, director A. Belinsky, choreographer G. Abajdulov, artistic director V. Vasiliev).
As designer she participated in the production of the ballet Anyuta which first saw the limelight abroad and then was staged multiple times in many cities in Russia and beyond: 1986, Teatro San Carlo, the Bolshoi Theatre, the Riga Opera and Ballet Theatre/ now the Latvian National Opera; 1987, the Chelyabinsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre named after M.I. Glinka; 1989, the Tatar State Opera and Ballet Theatre named after Musa Cälil, Kazan; 1990, the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre named after P.I. Tchaikovsky; 1993, the Omsk State Musical Theatre; 1995 the State Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Udmurt Republic named after P.I. Tchaikovsky, Izhevsk.
She had held several prestigious Russian awards and a diploma from the BAFTA “For visual solution” (the film The Lady with the Dog, a joint work with I. Kaplan, 1961).
She died on the 13th of June 2002 in St Petersburg.
Art. Lebedev Studio