A.A. Bakhrushin Central State Theatre Museum

Iosef Ifraimovich Yusupov-Cohen is an American set designer, costume designer, painter. Iosef was an artistic director and conceptual designer for the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics Iosef Yusupov-Cohen was born in Samarcand into a large family. He is one of five children, and the eldest son of Ifraim Cohen-Yusupov, a descendant of Moroccan-born Yosef_Maimon (Mamon) Maghribi who arrived in Bukhara from Safed and persuaded the Bukharian Jews to adopt the Sephardi liturgy. Yusupov-Cohen studied painting at the Art College of Dushanbe, Tajikistan and theater design at the State TheaterArts Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He continued his post-graduate studies at the Pushkin Theater in Saint Petersburg under the supervision of the famous set designer Mart Kitaev from 1986 until 1988 
After graduating Yusupov-Cohen designed sets all over Russia, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. His first major success came with the production of Oedipus Rex at the Tajik Academic Theatre of A. Lahuti. This production received prestigious State Price of the USSR for the Arts.
In 1991 Yusupov-Kohen family emigrated to New York City.
Soon after Yusupov-Cohen met George Tsypin in New York City and started to work with him as a collaborator and generator of ideas.
He has worked as a set-designer and associate designer with many of the leading lights of today's theater from Peter Sellars, Francesca Zambella, Andrei Konchalovsky to Julie Taymor and Hashim Gadoev, as well as Barzy Abdyrazakov, Shaig Safarov, Efim Maizel and Rosemary Andress. Yusupov-Cohen has designed numerous shows in New York, including theater and TV productions, plays, operas and Broadway shows.
Yusupov-Cohen worked as scenic artist in numerous film productions, including of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, Mark Webb's Spider-Man 2, Ron Howard's Beautiful Mind, Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, Wes Craven's Music of the Heart, among others. He is a member of United Scenic Artists.

Designer Gallery

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