Design for First Soviet Theatre in Orenburg

Ivan Alexeevich Kudriashev was born in 1896 in Kaluga. He studied at the Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in Moscow from 1913 to 1917 and later, from 1918 to 1919, at the Free State Art Studios (SVOMAS) in Moscow, under the guidance of Kazimir Malevich. In 1919, he was sent by the People's Commissariat to Orenburg to organize art education in the city and set up the Free State Workshops. At the "First State Exhibition" in Orenburg, he exhibited the plans for the mural of the First Soviet Theater. He returned to Moscow in 1921, where he lived until the end of his life. In the 1920s, influenced by contemporary scientific discoveries and the widespread interest in the study of the universe, astronomical phenomena, and space exploration, he created compositions that fit into a broader framework of cosmic abstract painting, to which he returned in the 1950s and 1960s. He passed away in Moscow in 1972.