23 Facts About Aleksandra Ekster

1.

Aleksandra Ekster's father, Aleksandr Grigorovich, was a wealthy Belarusian businessman.

2.

Young Aleksandra received an excellent private education, studying languages, music, art, and taking private drawing lessons.

3.

Aleksandra Ekster graduated in painting from Kiev Art School in 1906.

4.

Aleksandra Ekster's painting studio in the attic at 27 Funduklievskaya Street, now Khmelnytsky Street, was a rallying stage for Kiev's intellectual elite.

5.

In Paris, Aleksandra Ekster became personally acquainted with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who introduced her to Gertrude Stein.

6.

Aleksandra Ekster's friend introduced her to the poet Apollinaire, who took her to Picasso's workshop.

7.

Under the avant-garde umbrella, Aleksandra Ekster has been noted to be a suprematist and constructivist painter as well as a major influencer of the Art Deco movement.

8.

Aleksandra Ekster absorbed from many sources and cultures in order to develop her own original style.

9.

Aleksandra Ekster later founded a teaching and production workshop in Kiev.

10.

Aleksandra Ekster worked with Vadym Meller as a costume designer in a ballet studio of the dancer Bronislava Nijinska.

11.

Aleksandra Ekster's work was displayed alongside that of other Constructivist artists at the 5x5=25 exhibition held in Moscow in 1921.

12.

Aleksandra Ekster's works are vibrant, playful, dramatic, and theatrical in composition, subject matter, and color.

13.

Aleksandra Ekster constantly stayed true to her composition aesthetic across all mediums.

14.

Aleksandra Ekster uses many elements of geometric compositions, which reinforce the core intentions of dynamism, vibrant contrasts, and free brushwork.

15.

Aleksandra Ekster stretched the dynamic intentions of her work across all mediums.

16.

Aleksandra Ekster continued with these experimental tendencies in her later puppet designs.

17.

Thanks to the connections of her husband, Mykola Ekster, Aleksandra met Natalia Davydova, who had an estate with craftsmanship in Verbivtsi near Cherkasy.

18.

In 1908, Aleksandra Grigorovich married a successful Kiev lawyer, Nikolai Evgenyevich Ekster.

19.

Aleksandra Ekster spent several months with her husband in Paris, and there she attended Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Montparnasse.

20.

From 1926 to 1930, Aleksandra Ekster was a professor at Fernand Leger's Academie d'Art Contemporain.

21.

Aleksandra Ekster was a book illustrator for the publishing company Flammarion.

22.

Aleksandra Ekster drew illustrations for several poetry books and for three of Marie Colmont's children's books, which were published from 1939 to 1940.

23.

Aleksandra Ekster died in Paris in 1949 and is buried at the cemetery of Fontenay-aux-Roses.