Viktor Aden(1880-1942)
- Art Director
- Production Designer
- Art Department
Russian painter and art director and production designer of Soviet cinema. Born in 1880, Viktor Bogdanovich Aden made his first impression as a painter, with such works as The Strangers (1908), which is exhibited in the Regional Art Museum of Berdyansk, Ukraine. A master of light and shadow, Aden entered the film industry in 1921 when he was invited to consult on artworks shown onscreen in Johannes Guter's film Die schwarze Pantherin, in Germany. While there, Aden designed costumes for Dimitri Buchowetzki's Peter die Grosse, and assisted Jens K. Lind, the production designer of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Die Gezeichneten. His first known credit as a full production designer came with Bismillah (1925). He was known for his austere but stylized sets, often of wide bare spaces, drawing on the constructivist school of art vigorously promoted at the time by the Soviet government. His work in films continued through 1939. He died during the Second World War, at 62.