Alexander Alekseev (1901–1982) - book illustrator, graphic artist, author of animated films. Being Russian by origin, he spent almost his whole life outside the country, but he always remained true to his roots and homeland with his soul.
Without a doubt, Alexander’s talent is able to overcome any boundaries of time and space. His innovative approach to graphics and animation delighted his contemporaries - Salvador Dali and Orson Welles. However, in the 21st century, the originality of his thinking and skill still serve as an example for gifted young people.
Childhood and adolescence wandering
The first years of his life, Alexander Alekseev spent in sunny Constantinople, where his father at that time served as a military attache. The family of little Sasha moved to St. Petersburg after the sudden disappearance of his father during a business trip to Germany. Studying in the cadet corps (1912-1917), the boy became interested in drawing.
When the revolution began, Alexander moved to Ufa with his relatives, and two years later fled to Vladivostok. In 1920, the future artist was hired by a sailor on a ship leaving the port, and left his native country. Alekseev’s journey to France, where he settled in 1921, was thorny and meandering — through China, India, Japan, Egypt, and England.
French life
In Paris, Alexander Alekseev (photo above) continued to study painting in the studio of S. Sudeikin. In 1922, he began working as a decorator in local theaters, which contributed to the development of his passion for graphics and engraving. In 1923, Alekseev married the theater actress Alexander Grinevskaya and became a father.
Since 1925, Alexander tried himself as an illustrator of books and achieved some success. His creations are decorated with French translations of books by A. S. Pushkin, F. M. Dostoevsky, N. V. Gogol and other great writers.
Groundbreaking experiments
Alexander Alekseev was very impressed with experimental German films (“Idea” by B. Bartash and “Mechanical Ballet” by F. Leger) and decided to find his way in cinematic art. Together with his assistant Claire Parker, he invented a unique way to animate using a “needle screen”. The surface of the screen, made of soft material, was pierced by thousands of needles, which were pulled out when pressed and repeated the contour of the subject. Thanks to special lighting, graphic images were created, reminiscent of line engravings.
In 1933, with the help of his invention, Alexander managed to remove the painting “Night on the Bald Mountain”, which received enthusiastic reviews, under the musical accompaniment of MP P. Mussorgsky. At the same time, Alekseev created his own studio for animated films.
The lack of stable earnings prompted Alexander to create commercials for commercial companies, which he did with his team for four years (from 1935 to 1939).
In 1940, he and A. Grinevskaya emigrated to the United States. A year later, he received a divorce and married assistant Claire Parker. Alexander Alekseev continued to work in the field of advertising, but did not give up his own experiments. In 1943, using the "needle screen", he created the film "In passing".
Fame and recognition
Alexander returned to Paris in 1946 and continued to create commercials and book illustrations. The creative genius, along with his wife, was able to invent another unusual animation technique called the “totalization of illusory solids”. Its essence lies in the single-frame shooting of a light source moving in a given direction using a system of pendulums. In this case, complex effects were obtained, similar to computer graphics, even before its appearance.
Using this technique, the commercial “Smoke” was created, which was awarded a prize at the Venice Biennale in 1952.
Alexander’s authority in the cinematic world reached such heights that he could afford to shoot several more films on the “needle screen”, which later gained fame in many countries: “Nose” (according to the story of N. V. Gogol), “Three themes”, “ Pictures from the exhibition. ”
Until a very old age, Alexander Alekseev did not leave his work. The biography of this talented man inspired several directors to create films about him. So, in 2010, Nikita Mikhalkov released a documentary film dedicated to the life and work of the animated innovator.
Alexander is rightfully considered a major and influential cultural figure in France. In Russia, unfortunately, much less is known about him, but recently they began to learn about him thanks to the exhibitions of his works.
Alexander Alekseev is an artist and animator, who knew how to amazingly convey the play of light and shadow, did not cease to amaze with his original vision of everything and the constant creative search for new forms of expressiveness.