Natasha Kroll (1914-2004) was a display and production designer born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, who moved to Germany with her family in 1922. Most widely known for her production design at the BBC in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kroll went on to design several feature films. Her archive is held at the

University of Brighton Design Archives The University of Brighton Design Archives centres on British and global design organisations of the twentieth century. It is located within the University of Brighton Grand Parade campus in the heart of Brighton and is an international research r ...

Education

Kroll attended the renowned

Reimann School The Reimann School of Art and Design was a private art school which was founded in Berlin in 1902 by Albert Reimann, and re-established in Regency Street, Pimlico, London in January 1937 after persecution by the Nazis. It was the first commercia ...

in Berlin specialising in display design, and joined the staff as an assistant teacher when the school moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1936.

Career

Shop display

Kroll established her career as a window display designer. Some of her early commissions included Rowntree's department stores in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

and

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. In 1942 Kroll was appointed to the position of display manager for the large retail store Simpson (Piccadilly) Ltd. Her pioneering approach and her display philosophy, with its roots in European modernism, complemented the innovative new premises designed by

Joseph Emberton Joseph Emberton (23 December 1889 – 20 November 1956) was an English architect of the early modernist period. He was born 23 December 1889 in Audley, Staffordshire and was educated at the Royal College of Art. He first worked for the London a ...

. Kroll stayed at Simpsons twelve years, working her way up from the role of display manager to taking full responsibility for all the store's design, publicity and display work. During this time she recruited illustrator

André François André François (9 November 1915 – 11 April 2005), born André Farkas, was a Hungarian-born French cartoonist. Life He was born in Temesvár, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania), He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest ( ...

and gave Terence Conran his first display commission. Kroll was also involved in the design of the interior of the restaurant "Sugar and Spice", which opened in

Dunstable Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the ...

in 1966, and was owned by J Lyons & Co.

Exhibition design

Natasha Kroll was also involved in the display design of the following exhibitions: * Lion and Unicorn Pavilion at The Festival of Britain, 1951 * Finmar Exhibition at the Tea Centre, 1960 * Milan Triennale, 1964

Production design

In 1956 Kroll joined the production design department of the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

. As a member of the design department under Richard Levin, Kroll devised innovative settings for factual programmes and talks. As with her window displays, ideas originating from European modernism and contemporary design were given popular exposure. Of particular note is the studio design she devised for Huw Weldon's ground-breaking arts programme ''Monitor''. Kroll left the BBC to go freelance in 1966, specialising in period dramas. These included ''Mary Queen of Scots'' (1969) and ''Love's Labour's Lost'' (1975). Kroll gained several feature film credits as a production designer, including: *''Macbeth'' (1970) * '' The Music Lovers'' (1971) * '' The Hireling'' (1973) * '' Age of Innocence'' (1977) * '' Absolution'' (1978) (producer and production designer)

Bibliography

*''The Princess and the Pea'', Collins, 1944, OCLC: 179198949 *''Window Display'', Studio Publications, 1954, ASIN: B0006D85XA

Awards

Natasha Kroll was elected to the Faculty of

Royal Designers for Industry Royal Designer for Industry is a distinction established by the British Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers. It is awarded to people who have achieved "sustained ...

in 1966. This award from the Royal Society of Arts recognized both spheres of Kroll's work. In 1974 Kroll won the BAFTA for Best Art Direction for '' The Hireling'' (1973).BAFTA
- Film/ Art Direction, 1974

External links and further reading

*Britton, Piers, D. and Barker, Simon, J., ''Reading Between Designs'', University of Texas Press, 2003, *Ede, Laurie, N., ''British Film Design: A History (Cinema and Society)'', I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2010, *Suga, Yasuko
Modernism, Commercialism and Display Design in Britain: The Reimann School and Studios of Industrial and Commercial Art
Journal of Design History, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2006
Natasha Kroll
on the IMDB
Full filmography
from the BFI
Obituary
The Guardian, 7 April 2004
Portrait
by Nisha Keshav
Family Tree on GENI

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kroll, Natasha 1914 births 2004 deaths Reimann School (Berlin) alumni Best Production Design BAFTA Award winners British production designers Soviet emigrants to Germany German emigrants to the United Kingdom Women production designers