MORDECAI GORELIK (1899-1990)

Mordecai Gorelik (1800-1990) was a theatrical designer, producer and director in the 1920s and 30s. Gorelik was born near Minsk, Russia and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1905 to escape the beginnings of the Russian Revolution and its pogroms. He graduated from Pratt Institute of Arts in Brooklyn in 1920 and worked for Robert Edmond Jones, an innovator in the world of set and costume design at the time. Gorelik went on to work for some of the most famous set designers, including Lee Strasberg, Jo Mielziner, Oliver Messel, Henri Mattise, André Derain, and theater companies like the Provincetown Players, the Theatre Guild on Broadway and the Group Theatre New York. Gorelik pioneered the theory of infusing metaphor into set design with an emphasis on the powerful effect of color and light. In the present work, Gorelik translates this idea into a vibrant, bold and dynamic composition that was likely a study for one of the many productions he worked on during his successful career.