page_title: Aleksandra Ekster
section_title: Russian avant-garde
hierarchical_section_title: Aleksandra Ekster / Biography / Russian avant-garde
caption_attribution_description: Эскиз костюма женщины в юбке с фижмами. 1924 Коллекция Н.Д. Лобанова-Ростовского
context_page_description: Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster, also known as Alexandra Exter, was a Russian-born Ukrainian Cubo-Futurist, Suprematist, Constructivist painter and designer of international stature who divided her life between Kiev, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vienna, and Paris.
context_section_description: Under the avant-guard umbrella, Ekster has been noted to be a suprematist and constructivist painter as well as a major influencer of the Art Deco movement.
  While not confined within a particular movement, Ekster was one of the most experimental women of the avant-garde. Ekster absorbed from many sources and cultures in order to develop her own original style. In 1915–1916 she worked in the peasant craft cooperatives in the villages Skoptsi and Verbovka along with Kazimir Malevich, Yevgenia Pribylskaya, Natalia Davidova, Nina Genke, Liubov Popova, Ivan Puni, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova and others. Ekster later founded a teaching and production workshop (MDI) in Kiev (1918–1920). Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytsky, Kliment Red'ko, Tchelitchew, Shifrin, Nikritin worked there. Also during this period she was one of the leading stage designers of Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theatre.
  In 1919 together with other avant-garde artists Kliment Red'ko and Nina Genke-Meller she decorated the streets and squares of Kiev and Odessa in abstract style for Revolution Festivities. She worked with Vadym Meller as a costume designer in a ballet studio of the dancer Bronislava Nijinska.
  In 1921 she became a director of the elementary course Color at the Higher Artistic-Technical Workshop (VKhUTEMAS) in Moscow, a position she held until 1924. Her work was displayed alongside that of other Constructivist artists at the 5x5=25 exhibition held in Moscow in 1921.
  In line with her eclectic avant-guard-like style, Ekster's early paintings strongly influenced her costume design as well as her book illustrations, which are scarcely noted. All of Ekster's works, no matter the medium, stick to her distinct style. Her works are vibrant, playful, dramatic, and theatrical in composition, subject matter, and color. Ekster constantly stayed true to her composition aesthetic across all mediums. Furthermore, each medium only enhanced and influenced her work in other mediums.
  With her assimilation of many different genres her essential futurist and cubist ideas was always in tandem with her attention to colour and rhythm. Ekster uses many elements of geometric compositions, which reinforce the core intentions of dynamism, vibrant contrasts, and free brushwork. Ekster stretched the dynamic intentions of her work across all mediums. Ekster's theatrical works such as sculptures, costume design, set design, and decorations for the revolutionary festivals, strongly reflect her work with geometric elements and vibrant intentions. Through her costume work she experimented with the transparency, movement, and vibrancy of fabrics. Ekster's movement of her brushstroke in her artwork is reflected in the movement of the fabric in her costumes. Ekster's theatrical sets used multi-coloured dimensions and experimented with spatial structures. She continued with these experimental tendencies in her later puppet designs. With her experimentation across many mediums Ekster started to take the concept of her costume designing and integrate it into everyday life. In 1921 Ekster's work in fashion design began. Though her mass production designs were wearable, most of her fashion design was highly decorative and innovative, usually falling under the category of haute couture.
  In 1923, she continued her work in many media in addition to collaborating with Vera Mukhina and Boris Gladkov in Moscow on the decor of the All Russian Exhibition pavilions.
caption: Alexandra Exter, sketch, Lobanov-Rostovsky coll.
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