NISSON SHIFRIN (1892-1961) Set design for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1941) after Shakespeare

signed in Cyrillic and dated ‘N Shifrin 940’ (lower right), inscribed in pencil in Cyrillic ‘Nisson Abramovich Shifrin / Son v letnuyu noch / 1941 / CTSArmii’ (on the reverse of the board) watercolour on paper 28 x 45.3 cm (a vue) executed in 1940 Nisson Abramovich Shifrin (1892–1961) was a Soviet theatre artist, People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1958) and a two-time Stalin Prize laureate (1949, 1951). He studied at the Kiev Commercial Institute (economics department, 1916) while attending the art studio of A. A. Murashko (1912–15), and later worked in the studio of A. A. Exter (1918–19). Shifrin began his career as a stage designer in 1919. From 1922 he worked mainly in Moscow, designing for the State Theatre for Children, the MGSPS Theatre, the Pedagogical Theatre for Children, the Workers’ Youth Theatre, and others. From 1935 to 1961 Shifrin served as the principal stage designer of the Central Theatre of the Soviet Army. His collaboration with director A. D. Popov had a profound impact on his artistic development. In the designs for Popov’s productions, Shifrin’s main qualities were fully revealed: the organic inclusion of painting in the stage action, and a distinctive rhythm and dynamism of spatial composition. Among his notable works for TsTSA was A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1941) after Shakespeare.