In 1930 the artist joined the work at the Odessa VUFKU Cinema factory. He played a cameo role in the film The Museum Guard (1930) by Borys Tiahno and performed art direction of the films Perekop by Ivan Kavaleridze and Parental Right by Vera Stroeva.
While working on Perekop, some scenes of which were shot in the dark, Dovzhenko’s monumental vision coincided with a cubist monumental style of Kavaleridze giving birth to such impressive scenes as army’s transition through Syvash, where soldiers standing knee-deep in the icy water held the bridge on their shoulders. The scene filmed in a dark stage was lit by moving rays of spotlights, and accumulation of bodies gained unprecedented bas-relief monumentality.
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In almost a year Dovzhenko was invited to teach at Kyiv Art Institute where he taught until 1936. In the height of repressions against Ukrainian intelligentsia and physical extermination of the leading representatives of the Boichukist school led by Mykhailo Boichuk, Dovzhenko moved to the po-
Григорій Довженко. Ескіз розпису Східної торгової палати, Одеса, 1927
sition of officially proclaimed socialist realism and created easel paintings dedicated to ideologically relevant topics in The Itinerants aesthetics.
After the war, he performed monumental decoration of public buildings throughout Ukraine: the village of “Budivelnyk” in Dnepropetrovsk, Palace of Culture in Nova Kakhovka, Donetsk, Kyiv, Music and Drama Theatre in Rivne etc. In the 1970s, Dovzhenko returned to historical themes using to the technique of mosaics and classical frescoes, and in his easel paintings he painted intimate portraits, landscapes and still life in a tempera technique.
Hryhorii Dovzhenko. Drawing of mural of Odessa Eastern Chamber of Commerce, 1927