Born in Petrograd. Father, Kurilko Mikhail Ivanovich (1880-1969), a famous artist, stage designer, professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was the main artist of the Bolshoi Theater, the head of the theater workshop at the V.I. Surikov Moscow Art Institute. Mother - Ryumina Vera Nikolaevna (1889 birth.). Wife - Kurilko-Ryumina Margarita Panteleimonovna (born in 1934). Son - Kurilko-Ryumin Mikhail Mikhailovich (born in 1954). Daughter - Kurilko-Ryumina Maria Mikhailovna (born 1960).
Mikhail's passion for the theater was entirely predetermined by his parents. Father, a well-known master of theater and engraving, and his mother, a passionate theater-goer, from childhood involuntarily determined the future addictions of his son. Having fallen for the first time backstage of the play “May Night” in the design of his father and staged by K. Stanislavsky, Mikhail was stunned by everything he saw. It turned out that there is a special world that differs sharply from everything hitherto familiar: the bright pink beautiful legs of the mermaids, their exaggeratedly made-up faces, the conditional clothes of the couple, multiplied in the mirrors, are emphasized. This world pulled like a magnet.
It arrived on June 22, 1941. Mikhail got to the front literally from school. On July 3, he signed up as a volunteer and, after studying for two weeks in a camp near Tambov, ended up on the Western Front as part of the 64th Infantry Division. In the Smolensk forests took place his baptism of fire. The division in heavy battles was one of the first to receive the title of guard.
After replenishment and assignment of a new rank - the 7th Guards - the division was again sent to the forefront. And on October 5, in a battle near Kursk, Mikhail Kurilko-Ryumin was seriously wounded in the right arm and leg. Then there were long months of treatment in the hospitals of Voronezh and Frunze, medical board, demobilization.
Mikhail remained in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where until the end of the war he worked as an artist of the Kyrgyz Opera and Ballet Theater. There, in a distant evacuation, there were many interesting masters of theater, music, and ballet. While working in the theater, he received his first school from first-class artists V. Selivanov (Moscow Art Theater), T. Dyakova (Bolshoi Theater), T. Serebryakova (daughter of the famous artist), I. Eliasson (Moscow Art Theater). It was they who gave the veteran the first lessons of skill. Here, in the theater, he performed his first independent performances - the opera "Cio-Cio-San" and the comedy "The Examiner".
In 1945, Mikhail Kurilko-Ryumin left for Moscow to study as a theater artist at the All-Union Institute of Cinematography, where his teachers were F. Belogorodsky, Yu. Pimenov, G. Schegal, B. Dubrovsky-Eshke.
The first independent work of M. Kurilko-Ryumin in Moscow was the play “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboedov (1952) directed by the famous director Knebel. The success of this and other performances, which the young artist designed, influenced the decision of the Ermolovsky Theater to invite him to re-arrange the famous play "Pushkin". Meetings with A. Lobanov, V. Yakut - the unforgettable Pushkin, the young V. Andreev gave an additional impetus to the artist.
He was invited by many famous directors, and he had to work in many cities of the USSR, Russia and foreign countries. For almost half a century of work in the theater, M. Kurilko-Ryumin has designed more than 140 performances in theaters of Almaty, Astrakhan, Budapest, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kaunas, Moscow, Prague, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Ufa, Frunze. Among them are serious dramatic works, opera performances, and frivolous musical comedies: “Pushkin” by A. Globa (dir. A. Lobanov, V. Komissarzhevsky, 1954, Yermolova Theater), “In Search of Joy” by V. Rozov (dir. A. Efros, 1957, Central House of Artists), "Ivan Rybakov" by V. Gusev (B. Ravenskikh, 1957, Maly Theater), "Nameless Star" by M. Sebastian (dir. M. Knebel, 1957, Moscow Art Theater), "Living Corpse "L. Tolstoy (dir. G. Konsky, 1961, Budapest)," Saturday, Sunday, Monday "by E. de Filippo (1964)," Over the Catcher in the Rye "by Selinger (dir. A. Shatrin, 1965)," Uncle Vanya "by A.P. Chekhov (dir. A. Shat in, 1966, Minsk), "Tobacco Captain" A. Shcherbacheva (dir. V. Kurochkin, 1969, Sverdlovsk), "Before Sunset" by G. Hauptman (dir. V. Adzhemyan, 1970), "Uncle Vanya" A. P. Chekhov (dir. A. Mambetov, 1982, Alma-Ata), "Gadfly" Spadavekkia (dir. V. Chaika, 1986, Dnepropetrovsk), "Queen of Spades" by P. I. Tchaikovsky (dir. V. Chaika , 1990), "Stagecoach from Rouen" and "Wedding with the General" B. Ptichkina (dir. V. Kurochkin, Sverdlovsk), "Creating a Miracle" by W. Gibson (dir. Y. Osherov, 1990, Saratov), “The Shop of Antiquities” by C. Dickens (dir. Yu. Kiselev, 1990, Saratov), “Rigoletto” by J. Verdi (dir. B. Rubashkin, 1993, Omsk), “Othello” Shakespeare (dir. V. Demin, 1996, Vladikavkaz), many others. Among his film works is the famous film “Noisy Day”, shot in 1960 by director A. Efros based on a play by V. Rozov.
In addition to working in the theater, M. M. Kurilko-Ryumin has been teaching for many years. From 1951 to 1962, he worked as a senior lecturer at VGIK, and from 1962, first as an assistant professor, and then as a professor, the head of a theater workshop and the head of the painting department at the V.I. Surikov Moscow Art Institute.
Since 1954, M. M. Kurilko-Ryumin, a member of the Moscow organization of the Union of Artists of the USSR, constantly participates in art exhibitions in the country and abroad, conducts public activities. In 1982-1988, he was the secretary of the Union of Artists of the USSR. In 1988, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, academician-secretary of the Presidium of the Academy. Now he is the chief scientific secretary of the Presidium (1992), a full member of the Russian Academy of Arts (1995).
M.M. Kurilko-Ryumin - People's Artist of Russia (1993), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1970), Honored Artist of North Ossetia (1996), Academician of the Academy of Humanities (1995), Academy of Arts of Kyrgyzstan (1997) and the International Academy of Authorized Education ( 1999). He was awarded the orders of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, "For Merit to the Fatherland" of the 4th degree, many medals.
He is the author of numerous publications in magazines, collections, newspapers. For a number of years, he was a member of the editorial board of the Ballet magazine and a member of the editorial board of the Academy magazine. Currently, M. M. Kurilko-Ryumin is the chairman of the board of trustees of the A. Raikin Foundation, a member of the board of the Central House of Art Workers.
Among his passions is the collection of Russian household items of the 17th-18th centuries.
