‘A Gentleman in Moscow’: Why Abstract Russian Art Came to Dominate Its Main Titles

When the 2016 Amor Towles novel “A Gentleman in Moscow” was published by Penguin, designer Melissa Four was given a list of specific elements to use on the cover of the book that stretches from the Russian Revolution into the 1950s: a woman, a cocktail glass, a clock, a piano, a key …

But when that book was turned into an Apple TV+ limited series starring Ewan McGregor as a count sentenced to lifetime house arrest in a luxury Moscow hotel, title designer Matt Curtis got an entirely different assignment. 

“Basically, the brief was to do something that was in contrast to the show, but in keeping with the time and period,” said Curtis, who came up with an arresting sequence that is abstract rather than figurative, with a nod to Russian artists like Wassily Kandinsky.