Artist profile
VISUAL LEADING ARTIST - Sceneographer - TEACHING ARTIST
iosef
Yusupov
What do I like about theater? It does not repeat life as it is — it is larger than life. Theater is a community of creative people, you are part of a team. The director, set designer, lighting and costume designers — all have to believe in the same idea for the project to work. Long ago, when I first started, I was doing all of these myself, or else work with one-on-one with the director.
AT THE ROOT OF THE ARTIST
For me, painting is inextricably linked with theater. In this book I wanted to show not only my models and sketches for theater, but also my paintings from various periods of my life. I could change styles, shapes, color saturation, but what has remained constant was my connection with the East, with where I was born. Since childhood I have been fascinated with the brightness of my surroundings, with nature, the traditional dress and the oriental bazaar. I was in love with the structure of things, the roughness of the bark, the patina of old copper pitchers. Perhaps the sense of color and texture came to me from a more distant land – from Spain and Morocco, where my ancestors once lived. I wanted to convey this multicolored, multilayered world through my paintings and theater design. My work had to reflect that world.
I believe theater design is an amalgamation, a fusion of various art forms – painting, architecture, music…. It has to awaken the senses, it has to create an emotional, almost visceral experience for the audience. At its best, it also has to create something unique, something that has never been seen before. And for that, the set designer has to be able to bring to the fore his/her own emotional experience. The designer has to go beyond the rational, conscious mind and tap into the subconscious, that driver of our emotions which is by definition personal and unique.
And then form associations to that essence, which lead them to their subconscious. The play’s essence is an Ariadne’s thread which leads a designer deep within, to extract and bring to the surface their feelings, their past, and even their future.
The process of creating a breakthrough set design is not “thinking” it through – it’s more akin to dreaming. But the dreams of a set designer have to be rich and evocative, and for that, it’s important to train oneself to be a keen observer….
bIOGRAPHY
Iosef yusupov is an American set designer who was one of the creative designers for the team of the 2014 Winter Olimpics opening ceremony in Sochi, Russia. Curently living in the United States, he has design many shows (plays, operas, and TV) in New York and around a world and has worked motion pictures as a scenic artist. His sets that builds create an illusion of 3-dimensions, with 2-dimentional material as well as exhibitions and installations.
Yusupov was the eldest son of five, born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan to Ifraim Cohen-Yusupov, a descendant of Rabbi Yosef ben Moshe Mammon (Maimon) Maravi. After Yusupov graduated from the Saint Petersburg Institute of Theater, Music, and Cinematography, he went on to design sets in Russia and Eastern Europe. His production received the State Prize of the USSR for the Arts for play Oedipus Rex at the Tadzhik Lakhuti Academic Drama Theater.
When he moved to the United States, he met George Tsypin and has worked for him intermittently as an assistant , and later on as a conceptual designer ,since the early 1990s. Yusupov has also worked with directors Yefim Maizel, Rosemary Andress, Andrew Paul, Peter Sellars, Julie Taymor, Barzy Abdyrazakov, Shaig Safarov, Franceska Zambello, Andrey Konchalovsky.
“IOSEFYUSUPOV: Stage Dimensions,The Language of Color” was published by The Marsid M&M Group New York in 2020; his second book “IOSEF YUSUPOV: Face To Face” by the same publisher was released on august 2025
HISTORY OF EXIBITION
Iosef Yusupov works can be found in Museum of Theatrical and Musical Art
in St. Petersburg, State Central Museum of Bakhrushin in Moscow and in
private collections around the world. Yusupov’s works have been widely
exhibited in both group shows and one-man shows.
SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Solo Exhibition, “Stage Dimensions” — Paintings, Set Designs, Models, and Costume Designs Maurice Pine Gallery, Fair Lawn, New Jersey
2025 One-Man Show, “Face to Face” — Portraits of Friends New York, New York
2023 “Costume at the Turn of the Century 1990–2015” Calgary, Canada
2019 “Costume at the Turn of the Century 1990–2015” Warsaw, Poland
2018 “Costume at the Turn of the Century 1990–2015” Shanghai, China
2018 “Costume at the Turn of the Century 1990–2015” Fujian, China
2017 “Costume at the Turn of the Century 1990–2015” Taipei, Taiwan
2015 “The Turn of the Century 1990–2015” State Central Theatre Museum named after A. A. Bakhrushin, Moscow, Russia
2008 Solo Exhibition, “Stage Dimensions” — Paintings, Set Designs, Models, and Costume Designs Maurice Pine Gallery, Fair Lawn, New Jersey
2007 One-Man Show of Paintings and Drawings for Opera and Theater Baku, Azerbaijan
1999 One-Man Show of Paintings and Drawings for Opera and Theater Queens Theatre in the Park, New York City
1995 Group Exhibition Gallery As Is, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1990 Exhibition of Theater Posters Moscow, Russia
1986 “Artist in Movies, Theater and TV” Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Selected Bibliography
Publications About the Artist
- Iosef Yusupov: Face to Face.Marsid Group Publisher, New York, 2025.
- Stage Dimensions: The Language of Color.The Marsid Group, New York, 2020.
- Tsypin, George. George Tsypin Opera Factory: Building in the Black Void.Princeton, 2005.
- White, Natalia. Iosef Yusupov: The Creator of His Worlds.
- Exposition of the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale VIII.