Mikhail Romadin

• Name — Mikhail Romadin • Birthplace — Moscow • Birth Name — (Mikhail Nikolayevich Romadin) • Born — 12 April 1940 • Died — 3 January 2012 • Place of death — Moscow • Field — Painting, Film, Illustration • Training — All-Union State Institute of Cinematography

Mikhail Romadin was born on 12 April 1940 in Moscow. His father, the landscape painter Nikolai Romadin, was a student of Falk, Mashkov and Konchalovsky. When Romadin was thirteen he took lessons with Pavel Dmitrievich Korin, and it was at this point that he became attracted to less traditional types of art. He showed his experiments to Altman and Tyshler, and for a long time he was strongly influenced by the works of Picasso, Braque, Legér and other modernists, that he saw at the exhibition of French art that took place in Moscow in 1961.

Mikhail Romadin went on as a young man to attend the Gerasimov University of Cinematography, which he considered to be the higher education institute that offered the most creative freedom to its students. There his best friends and fellow students were the poet Gennady Shpalikov and the director Andrei Tarkovsky. They met every day and between them were overflowing with creative ideas. Romadin thought up the flying machine made out of a sack that figures in Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev (1969), and in 1964 he worked as an artist on the film I am Twenty 1965, which was directed by Marlen Khutsiev and written by Marlen Khutsiev and Gennady Shpalikov. He was then the production designer and creator of the style of Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), after which he went on to work as production designer on three of his friend Andrei Konchalovsky's films, The First Teacher (1964), The Story of Asya Klyachina (1967), and A Nest of Gentlefolk (1969). Andrei Tarkovsky about Mikhail Romadin: "Romadin's character is hidden, forced deep inside. In his best works what often happens is that the outward characteristics of barely ordered dynamism and chaos that one perceives initially, melt imperceptibly into the appreciation of calm and noble form, silent and simple. As I see it, this principle contains the highest artistic quality.”

Parents Father – Nikolai Mikhailovich Romadin (1903–1987) – famous Russian landscape artist and Academician. Mother – Nina Gerasimovna Romadina (Shpileva) Wife Ekaterina Shein-Romadina, ballet dancer (Moscow State Academy of Choreography- The Bolshoi Ballet Academy), actress (Russian Academy of Theatre Arts), curator of exhibitions on the theme of ballet. Сhildren Daughter Aleksandra Shein-Romadina, curator of exhibitions of contemporary art Stepdaughter Anna Högl, founder of Studio Naegeli Gallery in Gstaad and art space Dreiviertel in Bern (Switzerland)

Romadin's works have been exhibited in over 300 solo exhibitions worldwide, from Paris, Geneva and Berlin to Dallas New-York and Beijing.

• The Story of Asya Klyachina (1966) (Russian История Аси Клячиной, которая любила, да не вышла замуж, Istoriya Asi Klyachinoy, kotoraya lyubila, da ne vyshla zamuzh) • The First Teacher (1966) (Russian Первый учитель, Pervyy uchitel) – Art director, Costume Designer • A Nest of Gentry (1969) (Russian Дворянское гнездо, Dvoryanskoe gnezdo), dabed on the novel Home of the Gentry – Set designer • Solaris (1972) (Russian Солярис, Solyaris) Artistic director