Ralph Koltai CBE, RDI, was a German-born, naturalised British stage designer, who worked as associate designer of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and latterly as a sculptor.
11 Facts About Ralph Koltai
1.
2.
Ralph Koltai was the only child of a Hungarian-born doctor Alfred and his wife Charlotte Koltai who was German.
3.
Ralph Koltai's parents survived the Holocaust; his mother was able to settle in Britain, while his father began again in Cuba.
4.
Ralph Koltai worked as a translator at the Nuremberg trials and later for the British Intelligence Corps as an investigator of war crimes.
5.
From 1943, Ralph Koltai trained to a commercial artist at Epsom School of Art before he entered the military.
6.
Ralph Koltai was influenced by European theatre practitioners such as Bertolt Brecht and Vsevolod Meyerhold.
7.
Ralph Koltai was interviewed by Sue Lawley in 1998 for the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs.
8.
Ralph Koltai took part in Rambert's 90th anniversary oral history project, talking about his work for dance.
9.
The year before his death, Ralph Koltai was interviewed for TheatreVOICE at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Heather Neill.
10.
Ralph Koltai was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1983 New Year Honours and was recognised as a Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts in 1984.
11.
Ralph Koltai died on 15 December 2018, at the age of 94, at Chatellerault.