Ilya G. Segal was born on 21 Aug 1907 in the city of Vladikavkaz, today it is Ordzhonikidze. Dad traded mother was a homemaker, raising two sons. When the brothers grew up they spent their days, as their peers, ran through the streets, and in the evenings with my mother she studied French. Of course, these lessons are not delivered with joy, but when mother read poems and poems in French, the brothers listened, open-mouthed. And they loved to play in the generals and wanted to be something, maybe not a commander, but to be sure. Much later, Leo would become a writer, Ilya – the artist. As time went on. Revolution recaptures the space, money, minds. Collapsing ideals of the family, maimed destinies. And replaced as it seemed, came a new. The family moved to live in Rostov, where the brothers went to study in a Labour school of the second stage Kalinin. In 1923 Ilya Segal family moved to Petrograd and goes to the Higher courses of Art history at the Institute of Art History. Ilya Grigoryevich remembered how surprised the members of the selection Committee knowledge of the French language provincial boy.
Studies at the Higher courses became a gift of fate. He continued his studies in the French language, he will listen to lectures on French literature. History of Western art read Makulski S., lectures on the antiquities were led by A. Piatrovskaya by putting the conditions for holding seminars all texts must be read in Latin. A. Gvozdev, who headed the Department of theatre, gathered in the Institute's best theater critics and philologists involved in drama and theatre.
Been teaching them, and most importantly thoroughly. Although the time persistently dictate their terms, on the necessity of studying of disciplines of ideological direction. Starving students preferred to buy under the counter of a book on "Early Renaissance" and ran to the performances of Meyerhold. Unforgettable for Ilya Segal left the meeting with Isaac V. Mayakovsky, V. Kaverin and by Yu Tynyanov. Already doing at the undergraduate, Ilya Segal arrives in a beautiful Studio headed by M. I fear nothing, by I. radiovym. He liked art classes and the art of drawing, and from the conversations of the masters could acquire encyclopedic knowledge. Segal recalled: "if I have something and could in painting, but obliged to their teachers." In 1929, Ilya Segal becomes the "expert curator", as evidenced by a document, certified by the seal of the people's Commissariat of education of the RSFSR Supreme State Courses of Art criticism at the State Institute of Art History.
While studying the courses, the young curator starts working schedule in the "red newspaper", but the craving for theater prevailed. His work in the Theatre of the Baltic fleet was determined.
A fundamentally new relationship of the hero and the audience was given a sharp turn to the traditional theatres to the present, to the understanding of what is happening in the country. In the Theater of the Baltic fleet Segal draws up plays by different authors, and among them is "Front". D. Dividing, "Mutiny" A. Furman, "On the pole" A. brustein, "the squadron's Death" by A. Korneychuk. These productions present echoes of the mass spectacles of the twenties, in which the artist himself participated actively as a designer. Soviet plays with their living concreteness of change and the nature imagery. Building "roads" in the "Front", "the Death squadron", the artist paid tribute to constructivism.
Today already there is no sense in the juxtaposition of scenic and design concepts, and he and the other prospective, significant, and in varying degrees, effective. Then it became a subject of wide debate.
For the Segal closer was romantic and scenic hill generality. The artist thought the shape and color - hence the emancipation of imagination with elegance of lines. Exquisite in color and compelling look at the form of his sketches for the play G. Lukovsky "Russian sailors". The play was a long time in different venues. Unified decoration allows you to simultaneously see the deck of the ship, and to imagine how the same scene transformirovalsya in the room of the old mansion. Sketches done in a graphical manner with traditional artists "world of art", whose art Segal honored until the end of his days.
In 1941, when the war began, the artist went as a volunteer to the front, but was wounded and discharged. In the same year he was evacuated to Chelyabinsk, where in a peace time worked as the city theatre. After recovering from wounds, Ilya Segal works there as an artist-decorator.
War and postwar period was a crucible for all people. Was peace building. But even then, when I finally "ended the struggle between good and better", the country will long live in a daze. Returning to Leningrad, Segal returned to work in the theater of the Baltic fleet, where put on plays, and with which goes on tour. The love of the artist to a subtle stylized forms, and sometimes to the grotesque, attracted to him many Directors. He worked with A. Pergament and V. Luce, P. Chomsky and A. Tutyshkin, Z. Korogodsky and J. Hamarmer. Staged performances in the theater under the direction of A. Raikin. Finding his creative handwriting is close, Director and artist N. Governors invites .Segal to work on the costumes in the "inspector" by N. Gogol. Working with different Directors, Ilya Segal has designed more than 250 productions in different genres, many of which have won national awards.
In Chelyabinsk theater asked him to read lectures to the students on the History of art. On returning to Leningrad Segal continued teaching at the Leningrad University. A. Zhdanov, and then at the Institute on moss. In 1961, headed the production Department of the theatre Institute N. Governors, invited Ilya to see Segal score course artists theatre, which determined his fate. Segal immediately fell in love with their younger counterparts, students in the atmosphere then on the faculty. It was a wonderful experience. Teachers and students came to the faculty as home, and at times someone was going home, and talked and talked...
Ilya Grigoryevich often invited his students to him and they found there a warm, caring and no one knew that his wife was so cordially welcoming of all was a sick man, and the daughter is disabled. Students are always waiting for the tea and the fascinating stories about art and life in the theater.
Ilya Segal made seven releases. Today, among his students many great talented artists. When it comes to among them the wizard goes somewhere important, and lips spread in a smile. And not saying a word, talking about how he was a kind and sensitive man, what possessed encyclopedic knowledge, and most importantly, is that a real artist.
(The author of the article "the good teacher say a word..." Lyudmila Varnacova)
