© Estate of the artist. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum. Not for reproductio…

Robert Van Rosen

American painter, stage and industrial designer, and author, 1904–1966

BiographyBorn in Kyiv, Van Rosen emigrated in 1921, stopping in Paris before he settled in the United States by 1923. He quickly found work as a designer with the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York, designing sets for Peter the Great and King Saul in 1925. His modern approach to costume and stage design garnered notice in 1926 when he designed costumes and sets for the Provincetown Players' production of Princess Turandot. Van Rosen taught set design at the Master Institute of United Arts in Brooklyn and spoke on drama. His drawings, which reflect the influence of cubism and art deco design, were exhibited alongside the work of other modernists in 1926 at the Corona Mundi in Brooklyn, in a show organized by Samuel Halpert and Robert Laurent. That same year his set designs were exhibted in the International Theatre Exhibition, organized by Jane Heap and designed by Friedrich Kiesler

Later in his career, Van Rosen worked as a designer of product packaging and was a published author.

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