“Dimitri Tiomkin: The Musical Wizard of Hollywood” opened at the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Center in Moscow on December 7. Curated by Nataliya Klevalina, in collaboration with the designer and artist Elena Abarenkova, the exhibition consists of photographs and documents and will run through February 26, 2021.

Entrance to “Dimitri Tiomkin: The Musical Wizard of Hollywood” exhibition at the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Center in Moscow, December 2020.

The exhibition covers the pre-emigrant period of the composer’s life, the history of his success in Europe and the United States, as well as his collaboration with Soviet cinema in the 1960s.

The canvas artwork behind the display case is an artist’s rendering by Elena Abarenkova, based on a photograph, of the Russian icon room in Dimitri Tiomkin’s home in London.

There are copies of archival materials from the Russian State Historical Archive (Saint Petersburg), the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow), the Krasnogorsk Archive of Film and Photo-Documents (Moscow), and from the Dimitri Tiomkin Collection at the Cinematic Arts Library at the University of Southern California and this website, thanks to Olivia Tiomkin Douglas.

The Alexander Solzhenitsyn Center includes the Russian Abroad Library and Foundation, a museum, archive, science and research center, information and publishing center, and cultural and education center. There are two large halls, a 200-seat conference hall and a 190-seat cinema and concert hall. The institution is financed by the Russian government and strives to bring together and research the cultural legacy of the Russian expatriate community and to establish and strengthen bonds with those living outside Russia.

Nataliya Klevalina, who last year inquired through this website about the possibility of an exhibition, works in the Department of Documentary Exhibitions at the Solzhenitsyn Center. She graduated from the Literary Institute in Moscow under the supervision of writer Alexander Rekemchuk in 2001. Rekemchuk served as chief editor of Mosfilm Studio in the 1960s and worked with Tiomkin on the film Tchaikovsky. Prior to his death in 2017, Rekemchuk and Klevalina began to write a documentary on Tiomkin. It was Rekemchuk who suggested this exhibition honoring the life and work of Russian émigré Dimitri Tiomkin.

Images courtesy of Nataliya Klevalina.