Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter (nee Grigorovich), (January 6, 1882, Bialystok - March 17, 1949, Fontenay-aux-Rose) - Russian-French avant-garde artist (cubo-futurism, suprematism), graphic artist, theater and film artist, designer. Representative of the Russian avant-garde, one of the founders of the Art Deco style.
Born in the city of Bialystok, Grodno province of the Russian Empire, in the family of a collegiate assessor Alexander Avramovich Grigorovich.
She studied in Kyiv at the St. Olga gymnasium, which she graduated in 1899.
From 1901 to 1903, and also as a volunteer, from 1906 to 1908 she studied at the Kiev Art School.
In 1903 she married her cousin, lawyer Nikolai Evgenievich Exter.
In those same years, she organized a salon-workshop in her house, which became a meeting place for representatives of Kyiv avant-garde art.
In 1907 she left for Paris, where she began to study at the Paris Academy of Grande Chaumière and attend the class of the portrait painter Carlo Delval. During this trip, she developed friendly relations with P. Picasso and G. Apollinaire.
From 1908 to 1914 she lived in different cities of the Russian Empire (Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa, St. Petersburg), traveling extensively in Europe.
In 1908, together with D. D. Burliuk, she organized the exhibition "Link" in Kyiv.
In 1912, in Italy, she met the futurist artist Ardengo Soffici, and through him - with the leading avant-garde artists of this country, took part in their exhibitions.
She took part in most of the most significant exhibitions of avant-garde art in Russia (exhibitions of the Jack of Diamonds - February 1912, the Youth Union, Tramway B, etc.), France (Salon of the Independents - March 1912, etc.), in Italy.
In 1913 she took part in the organization of the "Ring" - an art group of the cubo-futuristic direction. In 1914 she took part in the organization and in the exhibition "Rings" in Kyiv.
In 1915 she joined K. Malevich's Supremus group.
In 1915-1916, together with other Suprematist artists, Exter worked with peasants in the art artel of the village of Verbovka (headed by her student Nina Genke) and the village of Skoptsy (headed by Natalia Davydova).
In 1918-1921, together with Vadim Meller, she worked with Bronislava Nijinska, V. Nijinsky's sister, in her ballet studio in Kyiv.
In 1921 she took part in the conceptual exhibition of constructivists "5x5=25".
In 1923, together with V. I. Mukhina, she designed the pavilion of the Izvestia newspaper at the first All-Russian agricultural and handicraft exhibition in Moscow.
A. A. Exter taught at the Odessa Children's Art School, then in her own studio in Kyiv (1918). From 1921 to 1922 she taught a course at VKhUTEMAS.
From 1924 she lived abroad. In 1925 she took part in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris.
As an artist of theater and cinema, she worked on the performances of the Moscow Chamber Theater by A. Ya. Tairova (“Famira Kifared” by I. F. Annensky (1916), “Salome” by O. Wilde (1917)), “Romeo and Juliet” by W. Shakespeare ( 1921), films (“Aelita” by Ya. A. Protazanov), etc.
As a costume designer, she collaborated with the Moscow fashion studio, worked on the creation of the full dress uniform of the Red Army (1922-1923).
In 1924-1925, she participated in the design of the Soviet pavilion at the XIV International Exhibition in Venice and the preparation of the exposition of the Soviet department of the World Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts (“Art Deco”) in Paris.
In the early 1930s, Alexandra Exter began working on Les Livres Manuscrits, creating unique handwritten books with each page signed by the author. These books Exter did, as a rule, in one, occasionally - in three to five copies.
Solo exhibitions of Alexandra Exter - Berlin (1927), London (1928), Paris (1929), New York (1930), Prague (1937).
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Theater and film artist, designer. Representative of the Russian avant-garde, one of the founders of the Art Deco style.
Biography
In 1903 she married her cousin, lawyer Nikolai Evgenievich Exter.
In those same years, she organized a salon-workshop in her house, which became a meeting place for representatives of Kyiv avant-garde art.
From 1908 to 1914 she lived in different cities of the Russian Empire (Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa, St. Petersburg), traveling a lot in Europe.
In 1908, together with D. D. Burliuk, she organized the exhibition "Link" in Kyiv.
In 1912, in Italy, she met the futurist artist Ardengo Soffici, and through him - with the leading avant-garde artists of this country, took part in their exhibitions.
Participated in most of the most significant exhibitions of avant-garde art in Russia (exhibitions Jack of Diamonds- February 1912, Youth Union , Tram B etc.), France ( Salon of Independents- March 1912, etc.), in Italy.
In 1913 she took part in the organization of the "Ring" - an art group of the cubo-futuristic direction. In 1914 she took part in the organization and in the exhibition "Rings" in Kyiv.
In 1915-1916, together with other Suprematist artists, Exter worked with peasants in the artel of the village Recruitment(the leader is her student Nina Genke) and sat down Skoptsy(Head Natalya Davydova).
In 1921 she took part in the conceptual exhibition of constructivists " 5x5=25».
From 1924 she lived abroad. In 1925 she took part in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris.
As a costume designer, she collaborated with the Moscow Fashion Atelier, worked on the creation of the full dress uniform of the Red Army (1922-1923).
In 1924-1925, she participated in the design of the Soviet pavilion at the XIV International Exhibition in Venice and the preparation of the exposition of the Soviet department World Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts("Art Deco") in Paris.
In the early 1930s, Alexandra Exter began to work in the direction Les Livres Manuscripts- creation of unique, hand-made books, each page of which has an author's autograph. These books Exter did, as a rule, in one, occasionally - in three to five copies.
Solo exhibitions of Alexandra Exter - Berlin (1927), London (1928), Paris (1929), New York (1930), Prague (1937).
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Notes
Bibliography
Albums and catalogs
- Nakov Andrey. Alexandra Exter: . - Paris: Galerie Jean Chauvelin, 1972.
- Alexandra Exter: The way of the artist. Artist and Time: [Album] / G. F. Kovalenko. - M.: Galart 1993. - 287 p. - ISBN 5-269-00056-3
Monographs
- Kovalenko Georgy. Alexandra Exter, Alexandra Exter [in 2 volumes, volume 1], Monograph; Pages - 303, p. illustration, portrait, color ill., port. - Parallel text. English. - ISBN 978-5-91611-018-0 . Moscow, 2010
- Kovalenko Georgy. Alexandra Exter, Alexandra Exter [in 2 volumes, volume 2], Monograph; Pages - 361, p. illustration, portrait, color ill., port. - Parallel text. English. - ISBN 978-5-91611-018-0 . Moscow, 2010
- Dmytro Horbachov, John E. Bowlt, Jean Chauvelin, Nadia Filatoff. Alexandra Exter. Monograph. Illustrations: 600. Pages: 448. ISBN 2-914388-27-6
Articles
- Kovalenko Georgy. Alexandra Exter in Paris // Theatre. - 1992. - No. 2. - pp. 103-122.
- Kovalenko Georgy."Color Dynamics" by Alexandra Exter (from the former collection of Kurt Benedict) // Monuments of Culture: New Discoveries. Writing. Art. Archeology: Yearbook. 1994. - M., 1996. - S. 356-365.
- Kovalenko G.F. Alexandra Exter: “Color Rhythms” // “Amazons of the Avant-Garde” / Managing Editor G. F. Kovalenko; Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. - M .: Science, 2004. - S. 198-215. - ISBN 5-02-010251-2.
- Nakov A. She was the only one whom Malevich allowed into his workshop // Culture. - November 10-16, 2005. - No. 44 (7503).
Interview
- Larina Ksenia, Trefilova Anna. : Interview of Georgy Kovalenko in the Museum Chambers program // Echo of Moscow. - 2010. - June 5.
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An excerpt characterizing Exter, Alexandra Alexandrovna
- Shall we go away on our business? Ferapontov said. - Give me seven rubles for a cart to Dorogobuzh. And I say: there is no cross on them! - he said.- Selivanov, he pleased on Thursday, sold flour to the army at nine rubles per bag. So, are you going to drink tea? he added. While the horses were being laid, Alpatych and Ferapontov drank tea and talked about the price of bread, about the harvest and the favorable weather for harvesting.
“However, it began to calm down,” Ferapontov said, having drunk three cups of tea and getting up, “ours must have taken it.” They said they won't let me. So, strength ... And a mixture, they said, Matvey Ivanovich Platov drove them into the Marina River, drowned eighteen thousand, or something, in one day.
Alpatych collected his purchases, handed them over to the coachman who entered, and paid off with the owner. At the gate sounded the sound of wheels, hooves and bells of a wagon leaving.
It was already well past noon; half of the street was in shade, the other was brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out the window and went to the door. Suddenly, a strange sound of distant whistling and impact was heard, and after that there was a merging rumble of cannon fire, from which the windows trembled.
Alpatych went out into the street; two people ran down the street to the bridge. Whistles, cannonballs and the bursting of grenades falling in the city were heard from different directions. But these sounds were almost inaudible and did not pay the attention of the inhabitants in comparison with the sounds of firing heard outside the city. It was a bombardment, which at the fifth hour Napoleon ordered to open the city, from one hundred and thirty guns. At first, the people did not understand the significance of this bombardment.
The sounds of falling grenades and cannonballs aroused at first only curiosity. Ferapontov's wife, who had not stopped howling under the barn before, fell silent and, with the child in her arms, went out to the gate, silently looking at the people and listening to the sounds.
The cook and the shopkeeper came out to the gate. All with cheerful curiosity tried to see the shells flying over their heads. Several people came out from around the corner, talking animatedly.
- That's strength! one said. - And the roof and ceiling were so smashed to pieces.
“It blew up the earth like a pig,” said another. - That's so important, that's so cheered up! he said laughing. - Thank you, jumped back, otherwise she would have smeared you.
The people turned to these people. They paused and told how, near by, their cores had got into the house. Meanwhile, other shells, sometimes with a quick, gloomy whistle - cannonballs, then with a pleasant whistle - grenades, did not stop flying over the heads of the people; but not a single shell fell close, everything endured. Alpatych got into the wagon. The owner was at the gate.
- What did not see! he shouted at the cook, who, with her sleeves rolled up, in a red skirt, swaying with her bare elbows, went to the corner to listen to what was being said.
“What a miracle,” she said, but, hearing the voice of the owner, she returned, tugging at her tucked-up skirt.
Again, but very close this time, something whistled like a bird flying from top to bottom, a fire flashed in the middle of the street, something shot and covered the street with smoke.
"Villain, why are you doing this?" shouted the host, running up to the cook.
At the same instant, women wailed plaintively from different directions, a child began to cry in fright, and people silently crowded around the cook with pale faces. From this crowd, the groans and sentences of the cook were heard most audibly:
- Oh, oh, my darlings! My doves are white! Don't let die! My doves are white! ..
Five minutes later there was no one left on the street. The cook, with her thigh shattered by a grenade fragment, was carried into the kitchen. Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife with children, the janitor were sitting in the basement, listening. The rumble of guns, the whistle of shells, and the pitiful groan of the cook, which prevailed over all sounds, did not stop for a moment. The hostess now rocked and coaxed the child, then in a pitiful whisper asked everyone who entered the basement where her master had been, who had remained on the street. The shopkeeper, who entered the basement, told her that the owner had gone with the people to the cathedral, where they were raising the miraculous Smolensk icon.
By dusk, the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych came out of the basement and stopped at the door. Before a clear evening, the sky was all covered with smoke. And through this smoke a young, high-standing sickle of the moon shone strangely. After the former terrible rumble of guns had fallen silent over the city, silence seemed to be interrupted only by the rustle of steps, groans, distant screams and the crackle of fires, as it were spread throughout the city. The groans of the cook are now quiet. From both sides, black clouds of smoke from fires rose and dispersed. On the street, not in rows, but like ants from a ruined tussock, in different uniforms and in different directions, soldiers passed and ran through. In the eyes of Alpatych, several of them ran into Ferapontov's yard. Alpatych went to the gate. Some regiment, crowding and hurrying, blocked the street, going back.
“The city is being surrendered, leave, leave,” the officer who noticed his figure said to him and immediately turned to the soldiers with a cry:
- I'll let you run around the yards! he shouted.
Alpatych returned to the hut and, calling the coachman, ordered him to leave. Following Alpatych and the coachman, all Ferapontov's household went out. Seeing the smoke and even the lights of the fires, which were now visible in the beginning twilight, the women, who had been silent until then, suddenly began to wail, looking at the fires. As if echoing them, the same weeping was heard at the other ends of the street. Alpatych with a coachman, with trembling hands, straightened the tangled reins and horses' lines under a canopy.
When Alpatych was leaving the gate, he saw ten soldiers in the open shop of Ferapontov pouring sacks and knapsacks with wheat flour and sunflowers with a loud voice. At the same time, returning from the street to the shop, Ferapontov entered. Seeing the soldiers, he wanted to shout something, but suddenly stopped and, clutching his hair, burst out laughing with sobbing laughter.
- Get it all, guys! Don't get the devils! he shouted, grabbing the sacks himself and throwing them out into the street. Some soldiers, frightened, ran out, some continued to pour. Seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him.
- Decided! Russia! he shouted. - Alpatych! decided! I'll burn it myself. I made up my mind ... - Ferapontov ran into the yard.
Soldiers were constantly walking along the street, filling it all up, so that Alpatych could not pass and had to wait. The hostess Ferapontova was also sitting on the cart with the children, waiting to be able to leave.
It was already quite night. There were stars in the sky and a young moon shone from time to time, shrouded in smoke. On the descent to the Dnieper, the carts of Alpatych and the hostess, slowly moving in the ranks of soldiers and other crews, had to stop. Not far from the crossroads where the carts stopped, in an alley, a house and shops were on fire. The fire has already burned out. The flame either died away and was lost in black smoke, then it suddenly flashed brightly, strangely clearly illuminating the faces of the crowded people standing at the crossroads. In front of the fire, black figures of people flashed by, and from behind the incessant crackle of the fire, voices and screams were heard. Alpatych, who got down from the wagon, seeing that they would not let his wagon through soon, turned to the alley to look at the fire. The soldiers darted incessantly back and forth past the fire, and Alpatych saw how two soldiers and with them a man in a frieze overcoat dragged burning logs from the fire across the street to the neighboring yard; others carried armfuls of hay.
Alpatych approached a large crowd of people standing in front of a high barn burning with full fire. The walls were all on fire, the back collapsed, the boarded roof collapsed, the beams were on fire. Obviously, the crowd was waiting for the moment when the roof would collapse. Alpatych expected the same.
- Alpatych! Suddenly a familiar voice called out to the old man.
“Father, your excellency,” answered Alpatych, instantly recognizing the voice of his young prince.
Prince Andrei, in a raincoat, riding a black horse, stood behind the crowd and looked at Alpatych.
– How are you here? - he asked.
- Your ... your Excellency, - Alpatych said and sobbed ... - Yours, yours ... or have we already disappeared? Father…
– How are you here? repeated Prince Andrew.
The flame flared brightly at that moment and illuminated Alpatych's pale and exhausted face of his young master. Alpatych told how he was sent and how he could have left by force.
“Well, Your Excellency, or are we lost?” he asked again.
Prince Andrei, without answering, took out a notebook and, raising his knee, began to write with a pencil on a torn sheet. He wrote to his sister:
“Smolensk is being surrendered,” he wrote, “the Bald Mountains will be occupied by the enemy in a week. Leave now for Moscow. Answer me as soon as you leave, sending a courier to Usvyazh.
Having written and handed over the sheet to Alpatych, he verbally told him how to arrange the departure of the prince, princess and son with the teacher and how and where to answer him immediately. He had not yet had time to complete these orders, when the chief of staff on horseback, accompanied by his retinue, galloped up to him.
- Are you a colonel? shouted the chief of staff, with a German accent, in a voice familiar to Prince Andrei. - Houses are lit in your presence, and you are standing? What does this mean? You will answer, - shouted Berg, who was now assistant chief of staff of the left flank of the infantry troops of the first army, - the place is very pleasant and in sight, as Berg said.
Prince Andrei looked at him and, without answering, continued, turning to Alpatych:
“So tell me that I’m waiting for an answer by the tenth, and if I don’t get the news on the tenth that everyone has left, I myself will have to drop everything and go to the Bald Mountains.
“I, prince, only say so,” said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrei, “that I must obey orders, because I always fulfill them exactly ... Please excuse me,” Berg justified himself in some way.
Something crackled in the fire. The fire subsided for a moment; black puffs of smoke poured from under the roof. Something else crackled terribly in the fire, and something huge collapsed.
– Urruru! - Echoing the collapsed ceiling of the barn, from which there was a smell of cakes from burnt bread, the crowd roared. The flame flared up and illuminated the animatedly joyful and exhausted faces of the people standing around the fire.
Alexandra Exter lucky to be born at the end of one era and work at the beginning of another. Why lucky? Yes, because the abundance of cultural trends and trends allowed her to express herself in many areas of art and not be condemned by society for this.
Facts from the biography of Alexandra Exter
On January 6, 1882, in the city of Bialystok, Grodno province, the daughter Sasha was born in the family of collegiate assessor Grigorovich. The family was the most ordinary, and none of the parents had any special hopes for their daughter. However, after graduating from high school, the girl announced her decision to enter the Kiev Art School. For three years she has been attending classes there as a volunteer.
In 1903 Alexandra marry. This event interrupted her studies at the school for some time, but it was then that the future artist takes her husband's surname, under which a little later she will be recognized in Russia and abroad.
Since 1907 Alexandra Exter continues his education at the Paris Academy of Grande Chaumières. In the same city, the artist rents a room for her workshop, where she often spends time at work.
Finding a Creative Self in Paris
Paris had a huge influence on the formation of the artist. Here she gets acquainted with the main trends, artists, poets. All this forms the necessary environment for the artist. Starting with bright and fashionable impressionism, she still prefers fauvism and cubism. Of all the currents that Exter managed to test in her work, she preferred cubism.
He attracted her not so much by decomposing objects into simple volumes, but by generalized harmony. She liked compositions in which there was not a single superfluous detail. Pointillist Nicolas Poussin, whose paintings possessed this property, became an example for her. Thanks to the French poet Guillaume Apoliner Alexander Exter meets P. Picasso, J. Braque, F. Leger. Communication with these people, the study of their work fascinated the artist even more with the poetry of cubism. In Paris Alexandra Exter the first works in the style of cubism were also written: “The Bridge. Sèvres", "Harbour", "Bank of the Seine". At this time, the artist pays special attention to color and movement. Her landscapes are characterized by dynamism: "City at night", "Florence"; it is also characteristic of non-objective compositions: “Dynamic composition”.
Activities in Paris
In 1910 Exter draws up futuristic collections "Mare's Milk", in 1914 - "The First Journal of Russian Futurists". Until 1917, the young artist participated in various exhibitions: "Jack of Diamonds", "No. 4", "Tram B". addicted Exter and applied art, developing costumes, decorating household items: scarves, tablecloths, pillows, lampshades. Artwork Alexandra Exter attracted the attention of the theater director Tairov, who saw in them great opportunities for updating the concept of the chamber theater. And the artist did not disappoint.
Seeing in the performance the unity of action and design, she designed the stage, scenery, costumes in a completely special way. She designed them by combining various objects and surfaces. With my works Alexandra Exter lays a new direction in art, called Art Deco. This direction is free from the conventions and socialization characteristic of "production art". Simultaneously with theatrical works, the artist became interested in non-objective art, studying the possibilities of color dynamics, this is evidenced by her compositions: “Non-objective composition”, “Non-objective”, “Construction of planes according to the movement of color”.
Russia for Alexandra Exter
The revolution bypassed the artist with its destructive influence. without getting lost in it, Alexandra Exter, having returned to his homeland, continues to engage in art, to participate in the cultural life of the country. And even when her husband dies of cholera in Odessa, Alexandra Exter does not lose heart and continues to create. In Russia, in addition to painting and applied art, Exter she is also engaged in training - she opens a decorative arts workshop. Many artists who later became famous passed through her workshop: N. A. Shifrin, L. G. Tyshler, P. F. Chelishchev.
In 1920, the artist marries the actor G. Nekrasov and, having moved to Moscow, returns to work in the theater again. Her efforts designed costumes and scenery for many Moscow theaters. Very interesting ideas in the development of models for the production of fabrics and clothing. Participates in the creation of the Red Army parade uniform.
Working a lot on exhibitions of Russian art in Russia, and then in Europe, Alexandra Exter one day he does not return to his homeland, preferring to stay in Paris.
And Paris again
Emigrant period of creativity Alexandra Exter also multifaceted and varied. She continues to work for theaters, teaches scenography, composition in painting. Creates puppets for theater and cinema. In 1930, the artist completely turned to decorative and applied art. Very interesting works in such an art form as Les Livres Manuscrits - the creation of books by hand. Each such book was unique and had the author's autograph. creative heritage Alexandra Exter had a huge impact on the development of world art, fashion design and theatrical art. ATTENTION! With any use of the materials of the site, an active link to
Paris, Editions des Quatres Chemines, 1930. Title and 5 sheets of text. Paper, gouache, pastel. 15 theatrical pochoir drawings. Format: 51.5x33.5 cm. The front cover is decorated with calligraphic delights by Guido Colluci. Edition format: 24.6x31.7 cm (image); 32.8x50.2 cm (whole sheet). The culmination of Exter's theatrical work was the performance in 1930 of an album of theatrical scenery from fifteen stencils, released in Paris by the Four Roads Gallery with a foreword by Alexander Tairov. In this regard, Exter was finally awarded a solo exhibition of scenery and costumes in Paris, organized by the same gallery. At that time, she became a full-fledged participant in the Parisian artistic life, as evidenced by her membership in the Circle and Square abstract art association, which published a magazine and organized exhibitions, thanks to which the “respectability” of this artistic movement was finally established in Europe. The circulation is 170 copies, of which 20 (numbered with Roman numerals) are signed by the author. The gouaches presented in this exposition are made using the stencil technique. Natalya Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Henri Matisse worked in a similar technique. Parisian publishing houses made artists orders for albums with a series of drawings united by one theme. They were printed in small editions, the sheets were signed by the artists themselves. The scenery designs from Alexandra Exter's album are not sketches for specific productions. These compositions were created based on previous theatrical works. In a number of cases, they demonstrate the author's vision of the possible design of the scenes of a particular performance. The album became an outstanding classic of the combination of cubism and constructivism in the design of theatrical scenery and costumes. Extreme rarity!
Bibliographic sources:
1. Christie's auction. November 27, 2008. Valuable Russian Books and Manuscripts. London Lot #111. Price Realized: $60,902
2. Christie's auction. September 17, 2009. Old master, modern & contemporary prints.
3. MacDougall's auction. December 1, 2010. Old master, modern & contemporary prints.
4. Christie's auction. October 10, 1990. Imperial and Post-Revolutionary Russian Art.
London. Lot #358. Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000
5. J. E. Boult. Artists of the Russian theater 1880-1930. Collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky. M., 1990. Ill. Nos. 141-146.
Alexandra Exter was born in Bialystok, near Kyiv. In 1901-1908 she studied at the Kiev Art College. The system of her creative views took shape among young avant-garde artists, including Alexander Bogomazov, David Burliuk and their senior friend Nikolai Kulbin. Having settled in St. Petersburg since 1912, Exter became an active participant in the artistic life of the city: she joined the "Union of Youth", in 1915 she demonstrated her works at the First Futurist Exhibition Tram V. Repeatedly visiting Paris, she communicated with P. Picasso, J. Braque, F. Leger, G. Apollinaire, was familiar with the Italian futurists A. Sofichi and F.T. Marinetti. Possessing a bright talent as a decorator, Exter worked a lot as a theater designer, creating stage design and costumes for actors for the performances of A.Ya. Tairov at the Moscow Chamber Theater (1916-1917). In 1924 she moved to France and continued her experiments in the theatrical field. In Paris, Exter taught at the Fernand Léger Academy of Modern Art and in her own studios. She created stage costumes for ballet performances with the participation of Anna Pavlova, Bronislava Nijinska, Elsa Kruger. Since 1916, the artist has been working a lot in the theater, which allows her to realize her unrealized abilities as a designer. Instead of picturesque scenery, she began to build them from simplified three-dimensional forms. In 1924, Alexandra Exter managed to go on a creative business trip to Italy, where she decided not to return to her homeland. She moved to France to live with her friend Sonia Turk-Delaunay. In the turbulent 20s and 30s of the last century, Russian Parisians brought oriental brilliance, melodic and joyful, gleaned from ceramics and popular prints, carpets and embroideries, Easter eggs and icons into the world of cubism. In Paris, Asya Exter taught at the school of Fernand Leger, worked at film studios in France and Germany. In Berlin, three years later, the first personal exhibition of the artist took place. By the way, the work of Alexandra Exter in the development of fashion design was quite successful. So, perhaps, in the phenomenon of "Parisian fashion" there is a contribution from our former compatriot. It is curious that, when leaving Kiev, and then from Moscow, Asya did not forget to take household items dear to her, works of friends, drawings and embroideries of folk artists, which she was fond of. Her old maid Annushka, who had lived with the Exters all her life, managed to take pots and bowls to France, in which she served Jewish and Ukrainian dishes, which were very popular with Asya's Parisian acquaintances. In the early 1930s, Alexandra Exter began to work in such a direction as Les Livres Manuscrits - the creation of unique, handmade books, each page of which is signed by the author. The artist made such books, as a rule, in one, occasionally - in three to five copies. Alexandra Exter died in Paris in 1949. From her letters it is clear that she literally starved before her death, but at the same time tirelessly restored her work and packed it in boxes in order to send it all overseas - to New York. Exter had no successors, and her entire legacy ended up in America. In New York lived her longtime, still Kiev acquaintance - the artist Simon Lissim, Exter was friends with him in Paris. Before the occupation of France, he, seeing that terrible times were coming for the Jews in Europe, left for the States. It was a Russian Jew, the son of a Kyiv banker. The person is very intelligent, elegant, smart. And he accepted Exter's legacy, realizing his high mission to preserve her work. He constantly turned to American museums with requests to show Exter's works, he gave them to them, because there was no other way out. Then no one bought them at all.
John E. Boult
Dynamic use of fixed form.
Art by Alexandra Exter.
The 19th-century stage was an encyclopedia of historical and social information, and the early modernist stage, which included the Ballets Russes, was no less illustrative. Despite such names as Yermolova, Nizhinsky, Pavlova, Chaliapin, Yuzhin, etc., the actor usually acted and moved "outwardly", in accordance with the plot. In other words, movement on stage played a supporting role. The appearance of Tairov and his Chamber Theater shifted the focus to the "internal technique of the actor" and to free movement. Thanks to the Tairov Theater, founded in Moscow in 1914, the professional stage in Russia ceased to be a mere literary illustration and received a kinetic charge. It is enough to recall the names of the leading actors of the theater - Alisa Koonen and Nikolai Tsereteli - and the artists Alexander Vesnin, the brothers Stenberg, Ekster and Yakulov, to understand the significance of the Chamber Theater in the development of new ideas of acting and theatrical design. It was a great success that one of the leading Russian graphic designers, Alexandra Exter, returned from Paris to Russia in the same 1914 and accepted Tairov's invitation to work at the Chamber Theater. As Tairov himself later wrote about Exter, she was "an artist with exceptional sensitivity", responding to his "stage ideas and at the very first steps she discovered a wonderful sense of the effective elements of the theater." Exter and Popova were among the few figures of the Russian avant-garde who managed to overcome the limits of the pictorial surface and organize forms in their interaction with space. Exter's deep understanding of the foundations of this interaction was clearly revealed in the very first joint work with Tairov on the production of Famira Kifared in 1916, and later on Salome in 1917, Romeo and Juliet and Tarelkin's Death in 1921 (not implemented). Paying tribute to Appia, Exter applied his programmatic principle of creating counterpoint to certain scenic architectural forms in order to obtain the required emotional response. Such are the pointed triangles of cypress trees and the gradual slope of the steps in Famir Kifared. Her focus on the rhythmic organization of space, on the rhythmic frame of action, was the main feature of her stylistic approach to the theatre, whether it was the cubism of Famira Kifareda or the constructivism of the Parisian designs of the mid-1920s, whether it was theatrical costumes or puppets. As a pioneer of new design, Exter has always remained “above the isms”, freely dealing with them and, in the case of constructivism, objected to the economy and stinginess that Rodchenko and the Stenberg brothers preached. She did not suffer from asceticism and conciseness and, designing fashion in 1923, made extensive use of the richness of the pattern and the mixture of styles that combined Suprematist motifs, Egyptian allusions and fur additions. So, in her design of Romeo and Juliet, Exter resorted to luxury and splendor, which were “too visual” for Tairov. With its decorative excesses, its Bakstian brilliance, this setting was more suitable for pantomime or circus, and the production failed. Some critics even spoke of "Romeo and Juliet" in 1921 as "the bitterest page" in the history of the Chamber Theatre. From Tairov's preface to the album “Alexandra Exter. Decors de Theatre, it is clear that he did not cease to admire Exter, but they never collaborated again in the theater.
It is understandable why Tairov welcomed the arrival of the architect Alexander Vesnin to the Chamber Theater to design the 1920 production of The Annunciation by Paul Claudel. A neoclassical by his architectural training, Vesnin possessed that restraint and sense of proportion that Exter lacked. These qualities helped him to create the exquisite solution of the "Phaedra" of 1922 and in the construction of the design for "The Man Who Was Thursday" of 1923. There is no doubt that the same conscious restraint attracted Tairov in the Stenberg brothers, whom he invited to design a number of important performances at the Chamber Theater, including The Thunderstorm and St. John in 1924. Exter could be carried away by the luxury of forms, not always achievable in the post-revolutionary theater, but she never forgot what kind of art she works in. After a short collaboration with Tairov, she worked on a collection of puppets (together with Nechama Shmushkovich, 1926), on the decoration of the Berlin apartment of the dancer Elsa Kruger (1927) and on a collection of stencils, published in 1930. But her most important design work in the 1920s was Yakov Protazanov's film Aelita (1924). With the help of Nadezhda Lamanova and Vera Mukhina (who worked with her at the Chamber Theatre), Exter designed the costumes, while her associate Isaac Rabinovich worked with Sergei Kozlovsky on the sets. The costumes for "Aelita" are beautiful. Alexei Tolstoy's fantasy novel about a Soviet engineer's journey to Mars required a figurative, fantastic script, and most of the characters, such as the Queen of the Martians, had no parallels in theatrical literature. On paper, Exter's costumes look clumsy and absurd, but in the film they were flawless. The film genre provided Exter with plenty of opportunities: she resorted to the cinematic method of "moving" the characters, giving the viewer an ever-changing point of view - a technique she used when working on puppets, also considered as a kinetic whole (they were also intended for the film). Exter, accustomed to the relative intimacy of the Chamber Theatre, was faced with the problem of overcoming the barrier between the spectacle and the audience, and Aelita helped her find a solution: by creating an illusion, the artist practically pulled the audience into action. But it is important to remember that it was dream films (often imported by Hollywood) and not the experiments of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov that attracted the Moscow public in the early 1920s. With its dual love story, inspired depiction of life on Mars, and unvarnished depiction of everyday Soviet life, Aelita connected dreams with reality, a happy future and the present, just like films starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks did. In return, cinema provided Exter with additional or artificial space; and strange costume patterns, and asymmetries, and mechanical attributes were in place in this ever-changing environment.
The success of the costumes was ensured by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the artist. They are very different from the puffy costumes for Romeo and Juliet and rather resemble the simple and strict costumes of Alexander Vesnin for Phaedra. Exter understood that color was not needed in the genre of black-and-white film, and resorted to a different system of formal definitions: a sharp contrast between the texture of metal, foil, glass and fabrics. These "industrial" materials were, of course, part of the futurist and constructivist cult of the machine (think of "Cat" and "Steel lope"), but for Exter they were not just "new": in the absence of color, they determined the form and, thanks to their transparency and refraction fit into the environment. The costumes designed by Exter were in perfect harmony with the scenery of her colleague, Rabinovich. His understanding of the stage was fundamentally architectural, not decorative, as he demonstrated in his most successful setting, in The Love for Three Oranges in 1927; later, even during the most pompous post-war period of Soviet art, he remained true to his convictions. In his work for Aelita, Rabinovich emphasized the verticals both in ascending elliptical columns made of smooth “metal” (gypsum and wood) and in translucent curtains made of rope and metal. The severity of these surfaces was balanced by the course of the action and the light beams passing through the mirrors installed in the floor, walls, etc. Exter also often used light panels in her work on various performances of the 1920s. Alexandra Exter is characterized by boldness of compositional thinking, sharp linear expressiveness; in her theatrical sketches, "static and the will to move that overcomes it are fighting," and this contrast "slows down the action, stops it in its most expressive phases." In Exter's sketches, the expressive dynamics of sharp, broken planes “lightning-like” draws the silhouette of a human figure, emphasizing the swiftness of its dynamic perspective. Fancy flowery ornaments - geometric or depicting animals - do not crumple with folds of fabric, live by their own separate rhythm and at the same time are firmly included in the overall compositional structure of the picture.
Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky recalls:
Another case involves the artist Semyon Lisim, who emigrated from France to the United States in 1941. He was once a close friend of Alexandra Exter and told us that she died at Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris. This was the only indication on which my wife and I made an attempt to find Exter's paintings in France. After Exter's death, according to her will, most of the artist's works were sent to Mr. Lisim. Despite this, we assumed that some of them continued to remain in France, and were determined to find them. The opportunity presented itself in 1965 when my New York bank sent me to work in the Paris branch for six months. One fine day, my wife Nina went by car to Fontenay-aux-Rose with our friend, the late Viscount Georges Martin du Nord, a Frenchman who shared our interest in Russian painting. They began to ask the local grocers and bakers if they knew anything about Alexandra Exter. Some remembered her name, but, unfortunately, no one could tell exactly where she lived. So after losing two hours, Nina went to the local city hall and asked an employee if he could show her a book of death records dating back to March 1949. The clerk refused, stating that the recordings were closed to the public. Then Nina showed her French journalistic card, which she received while working in the Paris branch of the Reader's Digest magazine. This helped, and she quickly found an entry dated March 17, 1949: "Madame Georges Nekrasoff, née Alexandra Alexandrovna Grigorovich, 29, ryu Busiko." Together with her friend, Nina went to this address and found a three-story apartment building. The tenants knew nothing about Exter, but gave them the Parisian address of the owner of the house, Mademoiselle Yvette Anziani. Mademoiselle Anziani, a lady in her early forties, remembered Exter with warm feelings. She told us that during the years of Exter's illness, nurse Micheline Strole cared for her constantly. Mademoiselle Anziani gave us her address, explaining that Micheline Strole was now the head nurse at the women's clinic in Fontenay-aux-Rose. The next Sunday we went to visit Mademoiselle Strol. As soon as we entered the small two-room apartment at the hospital, we found ourselves surrounded by Exter's work. On the walls hung four or five large oil paintings and several stencils from the book "Alexandra Exter decors de theatre", there was a chest painted by Exter, and two drawers were stuffed with stencils and various book illustrations. On the mantelpiece stood a cup and a gravy boat, painted by S.M. Lysim.
In his Notes of a Collector, Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky describes this case as follows: Born in 1882 in Bialystok. She died in 1949 in Fontenay-aux-Rose, near Paris, in complete poverty. Exter can be put on a par with the most talented and original Russian artists. Her own pictorial style, subtle perception of color combinations, colorfulness and decorativeness of her works invariably attract the viewer. She created a school in Kyiv in 1919-20, which produced such brilliant artists as Rabinovich, Petritsky, Meller, Chelishchev and many others. I have been looking for Exter's work for a long time. In 1962 I met the artist Lissim, a former Kievan and friend of Exter. He lived near New York. He inherited all her works, which were sent to him in America. I think that Exter bequeathed her work to him, because during and after the war he sent food to her, and this prolonged her life. I gave Exter's letters to Lissim to TsGALI, where she describes the terrible poverty and hunger during the war in Paris, where she had no relatives, and no one bought her work. And here at Lissim I saw all these wonderful works. But then I had very meager means, and Lissim, knowing this and our great interest (and I was then only interested in theater painting), invited us and arranged for us an exhibition of only theatrical sketches - without showing her abstract oil works. Then he said that we can choose ten works and pay as much as we can for each, and that there will never be a second such show, so we need to choose more carefully. I chose and offered him $30 for each job - I was ashamed to offer less. But then you didn’t even have this money, and he gave me an installment plan for two years! I told you about this for the following reason: last year at Sotsby, Exter's work from the Kostazhi collection sold for more than a million dollars. And her theatrical sketches in the catalog are tentatively estimated at one hundred - one hundred and twenty thousand. At the end of his life, Lissim wanted to somehow build on Exter's main legacy and offered me to buy it for fifteen thousand dollars. I didn’t have that kind of money then, and I went to Khaton, the main dealer in Russian art in New York, and offered him to buy this collection in half with me, adding that if he suffered a loss, then I would later give him his share. He refused, and twenty years later he called to me that this decision was one of the most unfortunate that he had ever made. Then I turned to the art critic Nakov, my friend from my student days. He caught fire with this and organized the support of two gallery owners - in Paris and in New York. They gave money for the purchase, then restored the paintings and in 1972 made the first Exter retrospective exhibition in Paris, with a catalogue. But when in 1964 we exhibited part of our collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, no one there knew who Alexandra Exter was.
A well-known researcher of Alexandra Exter's work Andrei Nakov writes (Paris, 2012):
An original and multifaceted artist whose life path is marked by a constant creative search, Alexandra Exter made an invaluable contribution to the formation of constructivist painting in Russia. During her stay in Paris in 1910-1912, she was enriched by the experience of cubism and very early began to introduce the principles of futuristic dynamics into her own work. Under the influence of the Suprematist revolution of Malevich, an active accomplice of which Exter became one of the first among colleagues - “non-objectives” in the fall of 1915 (it was then that this term was first heard in Moscow, and then in relation to her paintings), later, in 1916-1918, she managed to create a language of abstract forms and a logic of compositional structures, free from any influence whatsoever of the unconditionally autonomous aesthetics offered by Suprematism. Fascinated in the first Parisian period of her work (1910-1914) by the prospect of developing a new arts and crafts that grew out of the principles of cubo-futurism, in Russia she became the initiator of the first exhibitions of "modern decorative art" (Moscow, 1915 and 1917). Exter's name is also inextricably linked with the theater - the design of stage productions significantly expanded the possibilities for the flourishing of the artist's talent. Exter deeply experienced the dramatic events that resulted from the civil war, the human suffering and material disasters caused by it. Beginning in 1919, she made attempts to leave Russia. In June 1924, she finally managed to leave the Soviet Union under the pretext of showing her works at the Venice Biennale. After a brief stay in Italy at the end of that year, she ended up in Paris, where she lived for the rest of her life (the artist died in 1949). In the twenties and thirties, her activities were very diverse: she was engaged in "purist" painting, scenography, taught, created author's handwritten books, objects of applied art of the highest level - all this testifies in the most brilliant way to her talent, alas, which never received its due ratings today. The same can be said about her abstract paintings, the full power of which is still underestimated. Exter's "constructive" originality is so strong that the variety of her pictorial discoveries even today confuses art historians, who are used to classifying works according to the cliché of "geometric styles". Thus, at a recent "constructivist" exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, her work was presented "out of the catalog" next to the works of Rodchenko and Popova - artists whose work has set the tone for formalist, if not "postmodernist" classifications for several decades. Even the new "discovery" of Russian constructivism in the last third of the 20th century did not intensify interest in Exter's work in Russia.
The reason lies most likely in the prejudice that caused her close ties with Western art and the status of a "refugee". But in the 1910s, her painting was very noticeable among avant-garde artists, including Russian ones. Thanks to friendly relations with Malevich and Tatlin, the artist often acted as an “arbitrator” in the constantly arising conflicts typical of avant-garde artists, for example, those that accompanied the preparation for the hanging of the exhibition “0.10” (December 1915) - which, without diplomatic mediation, Exter could would end in disaster. Another obstacle to the study of her "pure" (painting) work was the loss of a large part of her paintings, which in 1917 remained in the house of her former father-in-law, where her workshop was then located. “Madame Exter”, as she was called in Moscow and St. Petersburg, was highly valued for her personal qualities and artistic talent, she occupied a prominent position in the Russian modernist environment: for example, Alexandra Exter participated in most of the exhibitions that marked the rise of non-objective painting. In Kyiv, she certainly played a dominant role. After returning to Paris in 1925, the artist became a figure on a pan-European scale. By that time, interest in abstract art in Europe had faded, but the artist continued to create, and very successfully, in the field of stage design for performances. However, starting from the 1930s, she painfully felt the reduction of opportunities for the development of modernist trends in art. To these experiences were added health problems that complicated her life. Professional contacts were lost, and in the late 1920s she had to settle in a modest house in the Parisian suburb of Fontenay-aux-Rose. Shortly before her death, she bequeathed the workshop and archive to her Russian friend Semyon Lissim, who emigrated to the United States. In the 1970s, many years of work began to perpetuate the memory of the artist, which continues to this day. Thus, it remains to be determined and secured for Exter that place in the artistic horizon of the 20th century, which rightfully belongs to her work.
Alexandra Exter (nee Grigorovich) was born in Bialystok (now part of Poland). Her childhood and youth were spent in Kyiv, a city open to contacts with the West, a cultural center with close ties to Krakow and Dresden, Munich, Jena and Paris. Unburdened by the immeasurable ambitions that poisoned the atmosphere of St. Petersburg, free from tough Moscow competition (in competition with St. Petersburg and Paris), Kiev was a southern, in a sense, provincial city, in which young artists did not burden themselves with pretensions to superiority. News from the West reached him as quickly as it did to Moscow, but they were perceived more naturally, without regard for possible competition, which so worried Muscovites. The cosmopolitan nature of Kyiv (many Moldovans, Jews, and especially Poles lived in the city) contributed to its European orientation and favored natural assimilation. Exter grew up and was brought up in direct contact with other languages and cultures. After studying at the local art school, the young girl, whose charm and talent helped her to move up the social ladder, dreamed of one thing: to continue her education in Paris. Even before leaving for France, she had contacts with avant-garde artists in Kyiv and St. Petersburg. She was naturally attracted to Fauvism, and connections in the art world and marriage to a famous lawyer opened the door for her to the so-called "good society". Fascinated by classical culture, she felt a particularly close connection with French poetry (Verlaine, Rimbaud). At the beginning of her career, Exter was close to the Croup/Symbolists, in the historical past she was attracted by the constructivist-geometric energy of the Etruscan art, with which she was able to get to know better during her travels in Italy (1910, 1912). Contrary to the preconceived notions about modernists of an overcautious and historically limited art history, the artists of this movement were well aware of and highly appreciated many aspects of the art of antiquity. So, in the twenties and thirties, Exter recommended that her students study the paintings of Poussin in the Louvre, believing that the painting of the great French classic is an excellent school of fine "construction". Having arrived in Paris in 1907 for several months to continue her education, Alexandra attended the "academies" of Montparnasse and, in particular, the studio of the portrait painter Carlo Delval at the private art school "Da Grande Chaumière". In 1910, she rented a workshop located at number 10, rue Boissonade, in the heart of the fashionable Montparnasse district.
The personal charm and subtle mind of a young woman quickly opened all the doors for her. Exter was a member of the Parisian salon of Elizabeth Epstein, a Russian student of Matisse and a friend of Kandinsky and Delaunay, she often visited Serge Fehr (Sergey Yastrebov), a patron she knew from Kiev, who sponsored the Paris Evenings magazine, the leadership of which he entrusted to Apollinaire (1912-1914). .). Friendship with Robert and Sonia Delaunay opened up new artistic and social horizons for Alexandra Exter - thanks to them, she met the art historian and collector of cubism Wilhelm Uhde and the Berlin gallery owner Herwart Walden, an ardent supporter of the Delaunay spouses and the most daring new European painting. Thanks to these connections, she met with the futurist artist and art critic Ardengo Soffici - during the Paris Evenings, a stormy but short-lived relationship arose between them, which Soffici very romantically and even somewhat frivolously described in his memoirs, from where she got into the mythical stories of not very competent critics . In Paris, Exter, fascinated by both Cubism and Fugurism, picked up a socio-artistic whirlwind, very far from "orthodox" Cubism. The artist's vacation trips to Kiev turned into a real celebration of modernism for her avant-garde friends - Exter brought all the Parisian novelties (publications, photographs and even original works) and enthusiastically participated in the most important avant-garde events, such as the exhibition "Link" and "Ring" (in 1914), which became the only large-scale seuturist exposition in Kiev, and throughout southern Russia. Unlike implacable Moscow or provincial Odessa, Kyiv at that time could be proud of the atmosphere of a truly European capital. In Paris, Exter actively participated in modernist activities: her works were exhibited at the Salons of Independence and at the exhibition "Golden Section" (autumn 1912) - the most important artistic event that freed Cubo-Futurist painting from the tight "geometric" framework into which anti-modernist art criticism hastened conclude the nascent cubism.
She visited the workshops of Brancusi and Archipenko, and gave advice to the young art historian Ivan Aksenov, the author of a remarkable book by Picasso and the Neighborhood dedicated to cubism. Written in 1914, it was published in Moscow in 1917 with a cover by Exter. This aesthetic essay, forgotten for several decades, became in its time not only one of the first critical texts on Cubism, but also the first book in the title of which appeared the name of Picasso. Continuing to work in Paris, Exter actively participated in the events of the Russian avant-garde: being a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Youth and the Moscow Jack of Diamonds, from 1910 she exhibited her works at exhibitions organized annually by these societies. Sna fit so well into the Parisian artistic environment that already in 1910 David Burliuk asked her to intercede with Le Fauconnier to organize a "Russian section" at the Salon des Indépendants. Exter's art was so highly valued in Parisian modernist circles that in the late spring of 1914 Herwart Walden offered to arrange an exhibition of her in his Berlin gallery "Der Sturm". The outbreak of war prevented this project, but in the spring of 1914 the artist participated, with several Russian colleagues, in the "First International Futurist Exhibition" organized by the Sprovieri Gallery in Rome. The war ended Exter's promising Western career abruptly, and for the next ten years she found herself blocked in Russia. Returning to Kyiv, in 1917 the artist opened her own studio, and then her remarkable talent as a teacher was revealed. For two years, her workshop was the true center of the avant-garde in the city - it was visited by writers and poets, musicians, dancers, various lectures were held there. Among the guests and students we mention Lissitzky, Rabinovich, Ilya Ehrenburg, his wife Vera Kozintseva, Exter's student, and her brother, the future film director Grigory Kozintsev, the Polish composer Korol Szymanowski.
Ballerina Bronislava Nijinska provided the artist with the opportunity to design the performances she staged in Kyiv and other cities. Fleeing from the civil war, in 1919 Exter left Kiev and went to Odessa for several months, where she hoped, following the example of her friends (in particular, Davydova), to board one of the ships that were going abroad. Unfortunately, she didn't succeed. In 1917, the artist's husband died, then her mother died in Odessa. An inheritance dispute initiated by a former father-in-law deprived Exter of most of her paintings, which remained in the Kiev house. Many of them were later destroyed in the crucible of the civil war. An invitation from the Moscow director Alexander Tairov, with whom Exter had already worked in 1916 and 1917, allowed her to eventually escape the horrors of the civil war, which was especially fierce in the south of the country. Upon her return to Moscow at the end of 1920, she immediately joined the new artistic associations and social groups, which at that time were mainly influenced by the constructivist wing of the avant-garde. This was the period of a new take-off of her painting: Exter participated in the most daring avant-garde actions, such as the constructivist exhibition "5x5=25" (September 1921), which became the apogee of the most radical trend in non-objective painting. Abstract plasticity has reached a conceptual milestone, which the young art historian Nikolai Tarabukin will soon call "the end of painting practice" and "the artist's suicide" (see his book From Easel to Machine, Moscow, 1923). At this time, Exter continues to design performances, teaches in Moscow "free workshops" (Vkhutemas), and also works for Lamanova's fashion studio and in cinema (costume designs for the film adaptation of the fantastic story Aelita). Director Protazanov filmed Aelita in 1923 and presented her to the public in early 1924. This film is rightfully considered one of the most daring and innovative from an artistic point of view. In 1923, Alexandra Exter also took part in the decoration of the first "All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft-Industrial Exhibition", and also made sketches of the dress uniform for the Red Army created in those years. Stage design of the performances "Famira Kifared" (1916) and "Salome" by Oscar Wilde (autumn 1917), which Tairov staged at the Chamber Theater, brought Exter fame. Artistic Moscow liked the last play so much that it became in public opinion a more significant event than those that were taking place at the same time in the country: the victory of the Bolshevik faction in the Duma, the historical consequences of which in the October days of 1917 were still difficult to predict. Exter brought a freshness of change to Moscow cultural life, including through her acquaintance with the latest scenographic trends that took hold in Paris in 1910-1913, and Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons (design work by Bakst), as well as the revolutionary performance of Vaslav Nijinsky in Afternoon Rest faun." She continued these innovations. Her radical innovation was the replacement of traditional stationary decorative panels with a play of light with a clear and at the same time dynamic spatial logic. In October 1917, the strict lighting design of Salome marked the birth of theatrical constructivism - this production became a real triumph. Exter dematerialized the scenery and complemented the dramatic austerity of Gordon Craig's monumental structures in a non-objective (abstract) way. In his reflections on the new production, Alexander Tairov emphasized Exter's revolutionary contribution to the design of the performance, which did not evolve in a frontal way (in the future), but was built according to plan - vertically. "Exter drew on her Cubist experience," he wrote in 1921 in the Director's Notes. The production of Romeo and Juliet in 1920 was the most impressive, the most baroque implementation of this principle of vertical stage design. The autumn of 1917 in Moscow was marked by the triumph of Exter's painting, which occupied a significant place in the exposition of the annual salon of the Jack of Diamonds association, whose short-lived chairman was Kazimir Malevich at that time. Two halls of the exhibition were entirely devoted to the work of Exter. She exhibited ninety-two works, predominantly theatrical costume designs, as well as several highly acclaimed abstract and cubo-futurist paintings, allowing some critics to confidently call her participation the artist's first solo exhibition. Art critics Tugendhold and Efros emphasized the dazzlingly bright coloring inherent in Exter's works, their "narrative" liveliness attracted the public more than the monastic rigor of Malevich's Suprematism. During the 1910s, Exter invariably participated in Moscow and St. Petersburg modernist events. So, in the spring of 1915, she was one of the exhibitors of the radical avant-garde exhibition "Tram V", organized by Malevich and presented in St. Petersburg at the height of the war. Exter exhibited fourteen large-scale cubo-futurist canvases, including several "urban landscapes" - a futuristic vision of "Florence" (today located in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow), "Synthetic Image of the City" and "Parisian Boulevards in the Evening" (also kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery). The last canvas is one of the Futurist works closest to the "Orphic" direction, so named by Apollinaire and developed in Paris by Picabia and Kupka. Like Giacomo Balla, in his pictorial plans, Exter directs the energy of centrifugal movement to the ultimate energy intensity, and this kinetic state is completed by overcoming any illustrative reference to forms. Thus, the artist independently approached the idea of abstraction. After this exhibition, Exter developed a special relationship with Malevich, who invited her to his Moscow workshop in the summer, where the first Suprematist canvases were born away from prying eyes. Their discussions about cubism probably prompted Malevich to finally conceptualize his vision of a new non-objective creativity - Suprematism. That is why Exter had the honor of being the first to present to the public two abstract paintings by Malevich, a few weeks before the opening in Petrograd in December 1915 of the truly revolutionary exhibition "0.10". This event marked the beginning of the establishment of Suprematism. A preliminary screening, organized by Exter, took place in Moscow on November 6, 1915. The event, called "Exhibition of Contemporary Decorative Arts", was held in the premises of the Lemercier Gallery. This event took place thanks to the energy and connections of Exter in modernist circles, as well as the financial support of her close Kiev friend, artist Natalya Davydova, a patron of the arts, who has long been passionate about promoting folk arts and crafts. Exter realized in Moscow the idea that was born in Paris, where in the spring of 1914 it was supposed to organize a similar event, which would show the practical possibilities of the new Cubo-Futurist plasticity. Sonia Delaunay, Balla and the English Vorticists have already taken important steps in this direction. The war prevented the implementation of this project in France, and a full ten years passed before the International Exhibition of Modern and Industrial Arts opened its doors in 1925. Exter had already returned to Paris by that time and participated in this event as one of the representatives of the large-scale Russian section. Both in Paris and in Kyiv, Exter went her own way in art. The artist’s interest in Italian futurism (Balla, Boccioni, Severini), which she knew from Paris, as well as her passion for cubism in its most abstract version, designated by Apollinaire as “Orphism”, predetermined her coming to abstraction in painting, as evidenced by the “Urban landscape” (Slobodskoy Museum and Exhibition Center). A decisive step was taken in the winter of 1915-1916. In this work, thanks to the work with color, figurative reminiscences are absorbed by independent, purely non-objective planes. Significant detail: the painting, sent in 1919 by the Museum Bureau of Moscow to the Sloboda Center, appeared in the inventory under the unambiguous title "Non-objective composition" - that is how it was perceived at that time. Kyiv, where her creative development took place, turned out to be saving for Exter due to its remoteness from Moscow competition and, in particular, from the stylistic influences imposed by tough avant-garde competition. Thus, Alexandra avoided the influence of Suprematism, which allowed the artist, taking into account the Western foundations of her plastic thinking, to go on an independent path, develop her own language and original logic / construction, which distinguished her painting from everything that was created then in Moscow. In 1917 and 1918, reflections on the energy of color and the constructive power it generated led Exter to create compositional schemes that had nothing to do with the existential dialectic of Suprematism. In contrast to the principle of absolute autonomy of non-objective plans - the maximalist aesthetics persistently proclaimed by Malevich - color plans enter into a fruitful relationship with her. This “constructive internal interaction, emerging from the logic of cubism, creates new formal relationships, opens up opportunities for new compositional schemes. From this dialogue of energies, a construction is born, each element of which fits into the fabric of creative interdependence. In the abstract art of this period, Exter develops many compositional solutions. Few artists of her generation can boast of such a variety of compositional types (Kupka, Franz Marc, Otto Freindlich). The energy logic that defines this "liberated color" autonomy is projected into a "metastylistic" state, since energy is, by definition, a non-formal concept. This energy circulates absolutely unhindered in the new freedom, from the most rigorous geometry to the humane lyricism of expressionist-type abstraction, when color appears in its nascent state (see abstract painting at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen). This freedom, which is the result of a purely energetic concept of color, reached an important milestone at the "constructivist" exhibition "5x5=25", which opened in Moscow in September 1921. In a brief statement published by the artist in the catalog, her coloristic demarche of that period is clearly expressed: “the presented works testify to the solutions of color relationships, [arising from them] mutual tension, rhythms and the transition to a construction of one color based on the laws of its independence. The results of this energetic The maturity of color is visible in a series of abstract works exhibited in the autumn of 1922 in Berlin (Van Diemen Gallery) and in 1924 at the Venice Biennale. The canvases she presented in Venice cemented the artist's European fame, which continued to grow in the following decade. In parallel with the "pure" creativity, Exter worked a lot for the stage: she owns the costumes and scenery for the plays Romeo and Juliet (1921), Comrade Khlestakov, Death of Tarelkin. Sna worked in Kyiv with Bronislava Nijinska and in Moscow with the dancer and acrobatic gymnast Goleizovsky. For his performances in 1922 and 1923, she created "linear" designs of boldness unheard of at the time. The virtuosity of the vertical platforms that impressed the audience in the production of Romeo and Juliet, the placement of platforms and stairs with inclined ledges, rushing up in the rhythmic (abstract) performances of Goleizovsky, amazed contemporaries. Ten years later, Tairov emphasized Exter's innovation, recalling that already in 1921 she "invented the vertical stage". Explaining the revolution made by the artist in the field of theatrical scenery in 1931, Simon Lissim summed up the method of dematerialization by light, which became the main innovation in Exter's work: “It is light that forms everything: stage and rhythm, volumes, costumes, lighting become equivalent light quantities.” Just as abstract art abolished the reference to an object (extra-pictorial), Alexandra Exter became the Christopher Columbus of modern stage design - she canceled the canvas-decoration, replaced it with pure light - an intangible and powerful design of the work. Presented in 1924 in Venice at the "Exhibition of New Theatrical Techniques", her scenery and costumes immediately won international recognition. The European tour of the Tairov Chamber Theater (Berlin and Paris, 1923) had already laid the foundations for this success. Arriving in Paris in early 1925, Exter was immediately invited by Fernand Degé to his Academie Moderne, where she taught stage design, since abstract painting was of much less interest at that time. From now on, the artist worked mainly in the field of the stage: in France, Italy and England, she made costumes and scenery for ballet performances, collaborating, in particular, with the famous Bronislava Nijinska. Exter's costumes for the fantastic film Aelita (1924), presented in 1924 in Venice and in 1925 in Paris, were enthusiastically received by the public and cinematographers. Their influence can be traced, for example, in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis. In 1927 she received a commission for a large series of puppets, which she subsequently exhibited in Magdeburg (1929) and Berlin (Fleshtheim Gallery, 1931). Created according to the polymaterial principle, like the reliefs of Tatlin or the Dadaist assemblages of Schwitters. Exter's puppets embodied the richness of artistic fantasy that would be reborn half a century later in the frenetic freedom of American pop art and in the French "new realism". The culmination of Exter's theatrical work was the performance in 1930 of an album of fifteen stencils, released in Paris by the Four Roads Gallery with a foreword by Alexander Tairov. In this regard, Exter was finally awarded a solo exhibition of scenery and costumes in Paris, organized by the same gallery. At that time, she became a full-fledged participant in the Parisian artistic life, as evidenced by her membership in the Circle and Square abstract art association, which published a magazine and organized exhibitions, thanks to which the “respectability” of this artistic movement was finally established in Europe. Exter's theatrical work crosses the ocean: in 1926, her work was presented at the "International Theater Exhibition" in New York, and the following year - at the famous "Machine age exhibition", which Alfred Barr organized at the new New York Museum of Modern Art. In the same 1927, the Berlin gallery Der Sturm by Herwart Walden hosted an exhibition entirely dedicated to Exter's stage work - it seemed that by the end of the avant-garde epic, her painting had finally faded into the background. Exter's constructivist puppets were an undeniable success. In 1925, Louis Lozovik, author of the first American book commissioned by Societe Anonyme Catherine Dreyer and dedicated to the new Russian art, published an article on the Exter puppets. In 1934, Alfred Barr again included the artist's works in the International Exhibition of Theater Arts. Two years later, Exter took part in the Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition, a now-historic panorama presented by Alfred Barr in New York. Thus, her name finally entered the history of contemporary art along with Malevich, Lissitzky, Rodchenko or Mondrian. A year later, Ester Shimerova, Exter's Slovak student, successfully completed a large-scale solo exhibition dedicated to the artist. Entitled "Divadlo" (theater), this latest presentation of Exter's work, which included 116 catalog numbers, was the largest exhibition of her stage projects ever organized. The opening took place in the Prague Art and Industry Museum (Umeleckoprumyslove muzeum) - in the country where the productive neologism robot appeared in 1920, which the writer Karel Capek managed to include in the vocabulary of European culture concepts. And only in Prague could the costumes created by Exter for the film Aelita be truly appreciated. However, this exhibition became the swan song of Czech modernism, as well as this period of Exter's work - the year was 1939, and a few months after the Wehrmacht's invasion of the Sudetenland, the bloody and destructive World War II began. From now on, the artist's creative activity was limited only to illustrating manuscripts. In 1933, Exter had already illustrated the poems of Arthur Rimbaud and the Rubaiyat by the Persian poet Omar Khayyam, but the bulk of the handwritten books were created by her in the difficult years of 1939-1942. Their plots were chosen by customers, but the quality of performance indicates the artist's special interest in ancient lyrics (Horace, Aeschylus, Sappho). The plastic result of the design of the collections of these authors is amazing. The experience of abstractionism led her to new artistic heights in the execution of these figurative illustrations. The brightness of the colors and the complexity of centrifugal constructions, often striving along intricate oblique directions, testify to the boiling of creative energy, which, even during this period of personal difficulties experienced, remained unchanged. It is hard to believe that works of such amazing freshness and fantasy were made in the midst of the war by a lonely and sick artist who was on the verge of poverty, as evidenced by her letters to Simon Lissim.
Forgotten by everyone in the difficult post-war years, Exter died in Fontenay-aux-Roses in March 1949, two years after the death of her second husband, actor Georgy Nekrasov. And it took several decades and the tireless work of Simone Lissim for her outstanding legacy to again attract attention. Nevertheless, even in the modernist period, marked by the emergence of abstract painting, Alexandra Exter was one of the first to receive recognition during her lifetime: articles in Russian periodicals published in the 1910s and an illustrated monograph testify to this. It was compiled by Yakov Tugendhold, a well-known art historian and connoisseur of modern French art, and was published in Berlin in 1922 in four versions - in Russian, German, English and French. This indicates that the publisher considered the perspectives of the artist on a European, if not global scale. And fifty years had to pass before her name appeared on the cover of the next monograph - these years were marked by the totalitarian censorship of an age that was so ruthless to the Prometheus of art. The first posthumous exhibition of the artist took place in Paris in 1972, fifty years after the publication of the first lifetime monograph; the second opened in Moscow in 1987 - half a century has also passed since the last Exter's lifetime exhibition. As for the place that belongs to her in the history of abstract art, it is still subject to approval.
A. Exter. Passes at auctions - 2.
5. A. Nakov.
A. A. Exter (maiden name Grigorovich) was born in Ukraine in Bialystok in a bureaucratic family on January 6, 1882. In 1901, she began attending classes at the Kiev Art College. In 1903 she married her cousin, the successful lawyer N. E. Exter.
Bridge (Sèvres)
Talented, beautiful, always friendly and affable, Alexandra attracted artists and people of art, her house became the center of Kyiv artistic life.
Salome
Material well-being allowed the artist to often visit Paris, from where she brought ideas and the latest trends in fine art: Fauvism, Expressionism and Cubism.
Composition
At the suggestion and thanks to Alexandra Ekster, Kyiv artists learned and absorbed what was new in the art of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.
city at night
However, the artist did not blindly follow Western influences. What she learned, she passed through herself, through the prism of her talent and imagination.
sea mask
Cubism with its logical and clear forms turned out to be close to the artist, but she reworked it into something of her own, creating her own, "Exter" version of cubism - cubo-futurism, which became the hallmark of her style and brought her fame.
Cafe
In 1907, Exter left for Paris, where she studied for some time at the private academy La Grande Chaumière. In Paris, she met with representatives of modern French art - the poet and ideological inspirer of the new art G. Apollinaire, J. Braque, P. Picasso, M. Jacob, with Italian futurists.
Genoa
The marriage of the Exter spouses was happy, but short-lived: in 1908, N. E. Exter passed away. After the death of her husband, the artist was left without a livelihood, without housing, and even lost her paintings, which her father-in-law did not return to her. Rescued teaching activities and theatrical orders.
Dance of the Seven Veils. Costume design for O. Wilde's tragedy "Salome". For the Moscow Chamber Theater
She taught at the Odessa Children's Art School, and then at her own studio in Kyiv.
In 1921-22. Exter worked at the Moscow Vkhutemas. Among her students were A. G. Tyshler, I. I. Nivinsky, I. M. Rabinovich and others.
Costume design for the production of "Romeo and Juliet"
She was a participant in almost all avant-garde exhibitions in Russia: the Salon of V. A. Izdebsky in Odessa (1909/10, 1911), "Wreath-Stefanos" and "Triangle" in St. Petersburg (1910), "No. 4" in Moscow (1914) .
Still life
In 1910 she joined the "Jack of Diamonds" association and participated in its exhibitions; in 1913 she became a member of the Youth Union.
In 1914 she organized an avant-garde exhibition "The Ring" in Kyiv.
Woman suit
Exter's early works were written in the style of impressionism, and later the artist came to futurism and cubism. Often she used the technique of collage.
Venice
In 1915, Exter joined the group of K. S. Malevich in Moscow. At the same time, she took up applied arts, using cubist forms to create household items.
Still life
The brightest page of the artist's creative biography was her work at the Moscow Chamber Theatre. She owned the murals of the theater lobby and the curtain, costumes and scenery for the drama "Famira Kifared" by I. F. Annensky (1916), "Salome" by O. Wilde (1917), "Romeo and Juliet" by W. Shakespeare (1921). The artist devoted herself entirely to this work.
Still life (Vase with cherries)
In 1923, she wrote to the director A. Tairov: “I transferred the stage layout to the bedroom in order to think about the performance even in my sleep ...” After the premiere, A. Efros wrote: “The performance would have passed completely without a trace if ... to this premiere took an unusual form.
Still life
The vestibule, the staircase, the foyer, and finally, the very portal of the stage were covered with solid, tenacious, good-quality cubo-futuristic painting...
Woman suit
The shifts and breaks of Exter's paintings, made with hot, I will say passionate conviction, embraced us with their pathos immediately at the entrance, led us upstairs, escorted us to the foyer and locked ourselves in the auditorium "...
Still life with vase and flowers
The bright, spectacular design of Exter overshadowed both the production and the play of the actors, including the prima donna Alisa Koonen, who was Tairov's wife. She did not forgive the artist for such a stunning success.
Men's suit
Tairov stopped all cooperation with Exter, which caused the artist a deep depression, as she admired him and his work. This personal drama was one of the reasons why the artist decided to go to live abroad.
woman with birds
In the 1920s the artist, like many figures of the constructivist movement, turned to practical work: she took part in the design of the First All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition (1923), came up with designs for fabrics, collaborated with the Moscow fashion studio, where she developed projects for women's clothing, participated in the creation of uniforms for the Red Army .
Structural still life
Fancy costumes for the film "Aelita" by Ya. A. Protazanov were made according to Exter's sketches. It was they who determined the whole style of the film, which has become a classic of the screen.
Bank of the Seine
In 1924, the artist was entrusted with the design of the Soviet pavilion at the XIV International Exhibition in Venice, where her works were also shown.
Woman suit
After Venice, Exter went to Paris to work on the exposition of the Soviet department of the World Exhibition of Decorative Arts. The theatrical works presented at it received a gold medal.
Female portrait
Exter did not return to Russia, she remained in Paris, and in 1929 she settled in Fontenay-aux-Rose. Abroad, Exter was engaged in theatrical and applied work, created costumes for ballet productions by B. F. Nijinsky, E. Kruger, and others.
Still life
In 1925-30. at the invitation of F. Dezhe, she taught at the Academy of Modern Art in Paris, and also gave private lessons.
Costume design for the Moscow theater
Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions. Until the end of her life, longing for her native Ukraine does not leave her.
Still life with eggs
She recalls how in 1919, together with her comrades, she painted sketches on Trukhanov Island early in the morning, “when it was shining at this early hour, after swimming in the Dnieper, it cheerfully, freshly goes deep into the whole of Ukraine.”
Women's costume for Spanish dance
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