Alexandra Exter

Alexandra Ekster is a prominent avant-garde artist of the world who lived in Kyiv for more than 35 years of her life. Here Alexandra graduated from St. Olga's Gymnasium, studied at the Kyiv Art School, married Mykola Ekster and lived with her husband and his parents at 1 Gimnaziyna Street (now Leontovycha Street), opening a Painting Workshop where Vadim Meller, Anatoly Petrytsky, Oleksandr Tishler, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Isaak Rabinovich, Kliment Redko and others studied and communicated. Alexandra Ekster and her Studio had a powerful influence on the creative life of the city. Together with Oleksandr Bogomazov, Ekster organized exhibitions of new art in Kyiv – the famous “Ring” and “Lanka”, which were among the first in the then empire. Anna Akhmatova wrote that all the leftist artists of Kyiv came out of her studio, and researchers claim that the avant-garde line of Ukrainian scenography originated in Alexandra Exter's theater.

In Kyiv, Exter collaborated with Bronislava Nizhynska's ballet "School of Movement." In the current National Museum of Art, she worked as a co-curator and exhibition designer for the 1906 folk art exhibition. And how much did Alexandra do to research and combine folk art with the avant-garde, folk craftswomen and modernists - collaborating with the peasant workshops of Davydova in Verbivka and Semigradova-Prybylska in Skoptsy. As a scenographer, she created hundreds of performances, and it was these, along with her works, that brought her world recognition. After moving to France in 1924, she also worked in fashion, creating fabrics and interiors. “She traveled a lot, lived for a long time in Paris and Moscow, in Rome and St. Petersburg. However, she always returned to Kyiv: here was her home, her workshop, her famous studio. And when she has to leave Kyiv forever, she will furnish her Parisian house exactly like her Kyiv one. It will have many bright Ukrainian carpets, embroideries, Ukrainian ceramics, Ukrainian icons,” writes long-time researcher Exter, also a Kyiv resident, Georgy Kovalenko.