Scenographic art in interwar Bessarabia

Abstract

Th e history of scenographic art in the Republic of Moldova coincides with the appearance of the National Th eater founded in Chisinau in 1921. Testimonies in this regard are the works of Bessarabian artists that are preserved in the collections of the National Museum of Art of Moldova. An impetus for the emergence of modern Bessarabian scenography was the Russian emigrant Georges Pojedaeff , who appeared in Chisinau in 1920 and befriended. Auguste Baillayre, who organized the personal exhibition of the scenographer at the School of Fine Arts on the borders of 1920-1921. Th anks to Auguste Baillayre, Th eodor Kiriacoff , Boris Nesvedov, Elena Barlo, Maria Starcevschi, Elisabeth Ivanovsky, Natalia Brăgalia and many others asserted themselves in this fi eld in Bessarabia, contributing to the establishment of modern Romanian scenography. Th e works kept in the museum’s collections demonstrate the painters’ attraction through the originality of the treatment and the tendencies of European art, included in the circuit of the well-known Russian Ballet tours organized in Paris by Serj Deagilev between 1905-1912. At the same time, we specify that the numerous works with which the Bessarabian exhibitors participated in the local Bucharest salons were lost during the last World War, being known the fate of the collection of the future Municipal Art Gallery, founded in Chisinau in November 1939.