Teimuraz Ninua

Teimuraz Ninua (also known as Temur, or Temo) was a renowned Georgian set and costume designer who worked in the theater from the late 1970s until his death in 2013.

Born in Sokhumi (Abkhazia), Ninua studied at Iakob Nikoladze Art College from 1963 to 1966, and then enrolled in the faculty of painting of the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. Beginning in his third year, he studied in the theater design studio. He graduated from the Academy in 1972. His thesis project featured sketches for sets and costumes for William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

In 1973, Ninua worked as a stage designer for the cinema studio Georgian Film, where he collaborated with the renowned film director Alexander Rekhviashvili on the movie Green Field (1973). Around this time, he was called up to the Soviet army, serving in 1974–75.

Upon his return from the army, Ninua worked at the Georgian State Youth Theater, becoming its chief set designer in 1977. In 1975, he produced designs for the play The Fable of the Tail, based on playwright Givi Nakhutsrishvili’s Komble. Staged by director Tengiz Maghalashvili in Tbilisi’s Alexander Griboedov Russian Drama Theater, the play brought Ninua his first acclaim for his theater designs. Also that year, he became a member of the Artists’ Union of the USSR.

Ninua’s earliest costume designs, which featured a prominent use of collage, reveal that he was an artist with a modernist approach. Associated with Western art movements, collage was banned from Soviet exhibition halls. In contrast to painting or sculpture, for example, there was greater room for avant-garde experimentation in the realm of theater; here, such leanings were deemed acceptable, seen as an element related to acting and maquettes. Not only did Ninua apply the technique of collage, but his way of thinking was collage-like as well—in a single stage production, he would unexpectedly combine motifs from completely different contexts to create a dynamic, organic whole.

In addition to achieving renown in Georgia, he was also featured at an All-Union exhibition of young theater and film designers held in Moscow in 1977. Reviewing the exhibition in the Moscow journal Theater, critic Aleksander Vasil’ev highlighted four young artists from throughout the Soviet Union, one of whom was Ninua. He wrote: “We should highlight the names of these artists, as we can speak about them as having their own style.” [1]

Ninua also received international acclaim for his theater designs. In the 1979 installment of the Prague Quadrennial—the most prestigious international exhibition of theater designers—the artist received a gold medal for his costumes for four plays: the above-mentioned Komble; Everything Upside Down (by Donald Bisset; directed by Nikolov Jandieri, Russian Youth Theater, Tbilisi, 1976); The Adventures of Buratino (by Alexei Tolstoi, directed by Ketevan Kharshiladze, Georgian State Youth Theater, 1977); and 12 Farewells (by Mati Unt, directed by Zurab Kandelaki, Metekhi Theater-Studio, Tbilisi, 1977, not staged). Ninua fashioned costumes by hand—sawing and sculpting them from different materials, and gluing pieces of fabric and various objects. Occasionally, his wife—architect Irina Sharashenidze—collaborated with him on costume designs.

His talents were admired by celebrated Georgian theater director Robert Sturua, who in 1983 invited the young artist to the Shota Rustaveli Drama Theater. Under Sturua, the Rustaveli Theater enjoyed notable success in the 1970s and 1980s, acclaimed throughout the USSR as well as abroad. Working alongside noted scenographers Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili and Mirian Shvelidze, Ninua produced set designs for many plays at the theater, remaining there for the rest of his career.

His designs for Sturua’s production of And It Was in the Eighth Year (composer Bidzina Kvernadze, 1983), staged at Tbilisi’s Zakaria Paliashvili Opera and Ballet State Theater, were one of his early successes. His designs for that director’s staging of Styx (music by G. Kancheli), presented at the Rustaveli Theater in 2003, was among his notable late-career works.

In addition to Sturua, Ninua collaborated with other Georgian directors as well: Dato Andghuladze, Evgeniy Ginzburg, Nukri Kantaria, Gogi Kavtaradze, and Gizo Zhordania, among others. He also produced set designs for the Kote Marjanishvili State Academic Drama Theater and the Sandro Akhmeteli Theater (both in Tbilisi), the Konstantine Gamsakhurdia Sokhumi State Drama Theater, and the Ilia Chavchavadze Drama Theater, as well as a handful of venues outside Georgia: the Vilnius Russian Drama Theater and the Bratislava Drama Theater.

Since during his lifetime Ninua was famous as a theater designer, less is known about his collages and paintings. He worked on the latter for himself, in his studio. Therefore, his two easel works from the Dodge Collection (ნატურმორტი ჩაქუჩის და ცელის გარეშე, Still Life Without Hammer and Sickle, 1980, ZAM D18262; ქიმიური შეტევა, Chemical Attack, 1982, ZAM D19219) are particularly notable, because they convey an impression of the artist as a creator of nonconformist pop art assemblages and collages.

Ninua received various awards and accolades, including being named Best Artist of the Year from both the Georgian Theatrical Society and the Artists’ Union of Georgia (1980, 1986, 1999, 2000). In 1996, he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of Abkhazeti Autonomous Republic, and in 2012, he received the Petre Otskheli Award and the “Duruji” for best scenography.

Ketevan Kintsurashvili

Translated from Georgian by Nino Gabunia

Photo portrait by Levan Kherkheulidze

Notes:

1. Aleksandr Vasil’ev, “Vsesoiuznaia vystavla ‘Molodezh’ strany.” [All-Union exhibition “Youth of the country”] in Teatr, no. 2 (1977): 112.