Mordecai Gorelik

Born to a Jewish family in Shchedrin, Russia on August 25, 1899, Mordecai Gorelik immigrated to New York with his parents in 1905. He graduated from the Pratt Institute of Fine Arts in Brooklyn in 1920, having studied with famous designers such as Serge Soudeikine, Bel Geddes, and Robert Edmond Jones.¹ 

After graduating, Mordecai Gorelik designed for the Provincetown Players, the Hedgerow Theatre, and then the Theatre Guild. This wide range of experience landed him the position of main designer of the Group Theatre. A fellowship from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1935 gave him the opportunity to study European theater and work with Bertolt Brecht.² On broadway he designed forty sets, some of which may be seen in the "Gallery."

From 1960 until his retirement, he was the Research Professor of Theatre at Southern Illinois University.² After a long battle with cancer, he died on March 7,1990 in Saratosa, Florida.