Katya Kompaneyets and Tengiz Mirzashvili sketches for Andrey Tarkovsky’s Hamlet
Scope and Contents
This collection consists of eleven color sketches for Andrey Tarkovsky’s stage production of Hamlet. The collection includes nine costume sketches and two stage sketches executed in pencil and French gouache on paper. The sketches were each created by costume and production designers Katya Kompaneyets or Tengiz Mirzashvili, with some in both hands, in 1976. The two sketches for set designs were created by Mirzoshvili. The designs were approved by Andrey Tarkovsky and some bear his signature on their reverse or accompanying matting.
As they were considered government property, Kompaneyets was required to purchase her artworks in order to obtain permission to leave the country with them when she emigrated from the USSR in 1979. As a result, some sketches bear a stamp obtained from the Ministry of Culture, approving their removal from the country.
Dates
- Creation: 1976
Creator
- Kompaneyets, Katya (Person)
- Mirzashvili, Tengiz , 1934-2008 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
There are no access restrictions on this collection.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Biographical / Historical
The 1976 Moscow production of Hamlet was the only stage play directed by Russian director, film maker, writer, and editor, Andrey Tarkovsky. The production was conceived and launched in a strained environment due to opposition from Soviet authorities who saw Tarkovsky as a dissident, and had long sought to suppress his work. It was banned following very few performances before audiences of limited seating at the Lenkom Theater.
A painter with a background in textile and costume design, Katya Kompaneyets was working and exhibiting as a professional artist in 1976. The previous year the Artists’ Union had granted her studio space near Moscow which she shared with Tengiz Mirzashvili. Mirzashvili was a professor of art, painter, and theater production designer working in Moscow and Tbilisi.
Extent
1.25 Cubic Feet (1 oversize box)
Language of Materials
Russian
Arrangement
Sketches arranged as received, one sketch per folder. Folder titles derived from Kompaneyets’s inventory list.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Collection was acquired from Katya Kompaneyets in 2017.
General
Sketches were previously exhibited: "Katya Kompaneyets: Tarkovsky’s Hamlet" September 17-November 4, 2015 at Santa Monica College, Emeritus College, Santa Monica, California.
- Title
- Katya Kompaneyets and Tengiz Mirzashvili sketches for Andrey Tarkovsky’s Hamlet
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Jennifer Brcka
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the University of Notre Dame Rare Books & Special Collections Repository