André Andrejew (21 January 1887 – 13 March 1967) was one of the most important art directors of the international cinema of the twentieth century. He had a distinctive, innovative style. His décors were both expressive and realistic. French writer Lucie Derain described Andrejew at the peak of his career as "an artist of the grand style, blessed with a vision of lyrical quality." Edith C. Lee wrote recently: "Believing in creative freedom rather than academic reconstruction, André Andrejew fulfilled the 20th century's notion of the romantic, individualistic artist. The unusual titillated his imagination."
Early life
André Andrejew was born in Schawli (Lithuanian: Šiauliai), Russian Empire (now Lithuania), on 21 January 1887 as Andrej Andreyev (Russian: Андрей Андреев). He studied architecture at the Fine Arts Academy in Moscow. At the time in Russia, architecture could be studied at technical universities and with the more artistic angle at art academies, where accent was on interior design and decor and students were trained as artists. After the studies, André Andrejew worked as a scene designer at the Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre.
In Berlin
After the October revolution of 1917, Andrejew left Russia. In Germany and Austria, he worked as stage designer in theater productions in Berlin and Vienna, working among others with Max Reinhardt. In 1921/1922, he designed stage decorations for the Jasha Jushny's Der Blaue Vogel (Blue Bird), a legendary Russian émigré cabaret at Goltzstrasse in Berlin.
In 1923, he designed his first cinema décor for Raskolnikow, directed by Robert Wiene, film based upon Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. This expressionist work made him the foremost art director in Germany. Rudolf Kurtz in his Expressionismus und Film (1926) wrote: Andrejew is a typical Moscow mixture, distinction of the streaked folk art (his decors) dissolves the rhythm of images, creates gentle forms, establishes balance even when everything is broken and torn.
Germany produced at the time hundreds of feature movies each year, and as cinema was silent, they were often produced in a co-production with France and released in both countries with different language inter-titles. Andrejew designed décors for several major German and Franco-German productions directed by Pabst, Feyder, Duvivier, Christian-Jacque. The titles of this period include Dancing Vienna, Pandora's Box, The Threepenny Opera, Don Quixote, The Golem, Meyerling.
Especially interesting is today The Threepenny Opera (1930), directed by G.W. Pabst. Andrejew built for this film huge sets of the imaginary London. These decors artistically continue German Expressionism of the 1920s, but bring it to another level, creating the world far more realistic, intense and somber.
France, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia: 1933-1940
Immediately after Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, Andrejew as several other Russian artists living in Berlin left for Paris. At first he worked with the directors who also left Germany (Fedor Ozep, Alexis Granowsky, G. W. Pabst), but later with the most successful French filmmakers of the time, working on art direction of numerous film productions in France, England, and Czechoslovakia. In collaboration with Pimenoff, Andrejew art directed 'Les Yeux Noirs'. Following this came sumptuous sets for 'Les Nuits Moscovites' and 'Myerling'. His sets for Duvivier's 'Golem' made in Prague were remarkable, the camera reproducing the artist's original designs very faithfully. Toeplitz brought Andrejew to England in 1937 to make 'The Dictator', and he stayed on to make 'Whom the Gods Love' for Basil Dean. Both these films were set against lavish eighteenth century backgrounds on which he was so much at home(...)Until 1937 he was associated with many productions for London Films but returned to his chateau in France in 1938. Just before the World War II, Andrejew was active in France making decors for two films with Pabst and several other films with L'Herbier, Ozep, Pottier, Lacombe and Mirande.