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Biografy

Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter, known as Alexandra Exter
(Belostok, 1882-Fontainé aux Roses, 1949)

She was born on January 6th, 1882 in Belostok (currently Poland), near Kiev (Ukraine). Four years later her family settles in Kiev, where she frequents the Santa Olga Girls' Gym, and from 1901 to 1903, the Art Institute of Kiev. In 1904 she marries her cousin Nikolai Exter, a successful lawyer. She takes her first trip to Paris in 1906 and for some time attends the Grande Chaumière academy with the portrait artist Charles Delval. She exposes her art for the first time in Kiev in 1908, and in the same year organizes, along with D. Burliuk and N. Kulbin the show called "Zveno" (The Link). At that time she also produces her first book of illustrations.

Between 1909 and 1914 she travels quite a bit: she lives in Kiev and Moscow, has a lengthy stay in Paris, and goes to Italy. In the French capital she rents a studio and her compatriot, Serge Férat, introduces her to Picasso, Braque, and Léger, as well as the poets Apollinaire and Max Jacob. Through the Italian painter Ardengo Soffici, with whom she shares both her French studio and her life for some time, Alexandra Exter meets such futurists as Marinetti and Govanni Papini. They travel to Florence as well as other Italian cities. Together these contacts reveal cubist and futurist languages that she will develop--along with other Russian artists--in a particular way within what is known as "cubo-futurism."

She joins futurist Russian circles and participates in the magazines that they publish. As a member of group of painters referred to as "Jota de Diamantes" and "Unión de la Juventud", Exter publishes an article entitled "Lo nuevo en la pintura francesa" (What is New in French Painting) in the magazine Iskusstvo (Art) in 1912. In the summer of 1914, at the start of World War I, she closes her studio and bids farewell to Scoffic at the station, where she takes the return train to Kiev. For a few years she lives between the Ukrainian city and Moscow. It is during this period when she abandons her cubo-futurist painting and, influenced by the ideas of Vladimir Tatlin and Malevich she directs her work toward abstraction. In 1915 she also works for the Cámara Theater of Moscow, these being the first of her commissioned works for the stage that continue throughout her long and productive career.

In 1918 her husband passes away and she sets up her studio in Kiev, trying to keep her artistic activity alive in a city that is so isolated from Europe. Artists, writers, theater directors, and choreographers gather in her studio, making her an important creative reference for young artists. Her abstract compositions adopt titles that come from physics: velocity, acceleration, mass, vector, etc. In them she analyses color, although this element was clearly present in her cubo-futurist works. In her set and costume designs--many of which were for the works of Tairov--she created a new formal concept, highlighting the dynamic aspects of shapes that were beyond the functional necessities for the stage, in which the costumes interacted with the scenic space. As a member of the art activists association, she is named to serve on the board of various associations in Kiev in preparation for the Panukrainian Congress of art activists. She later participates in propagandist movements for the People's Commission for the Instruction of the Ukrainian Republic.

In 1920 she leaves Kiev and settles in Moscow, where she marries the actor Gregori Nekrasov. She continues her theatrical projects, designing costumes and formalwear for the red army. In 1921 she joins the group of constructivists associated with Rodchenko, along with Stepanova, Popova, and Vesnin. She also teaches in Vchutemas and collaborates on the preparation of the Izvestija pavilion for the agricultural, industrial, and artistic Exposition, as well as for the Panrussian Exposition of the Arts, both in Moscow. In 1922 J. Tugendchold dedicates a monograph to her: Alexandra Exter as Painter and Scenic Designer . She designs costumes for the film Aelita , directed by Protazanov in 1924. She collaborates on the soviet pavilion in the Biennal of Venice and in the same year she moves to Paris, where she continues working in theatrical design and, in 1925, in the soviet pavilion of the International Exposition of Decorative Arts. From that year until 1930 she works as a scenic design teacher in the Moderne Academy, inaugurated by Fernand Léger in Paris. In 1927 the Sturm Gallery in Berlin organizes the first individual exposition of Alexandra Exter, although during the 30's and 40's she is basically involved in scenic design, costumes, books and movie sets. She passed away on March 17th, 1949 in Fontainé aux Roses, where she was buried in a local cemetery under a tombstone that she herself designed after the death of her husband in 1945.C.B.