15 Facts About Lyubov Popova

Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova was a Russian-Soviet avant-garde artist, painter and designer.

Lyubov Popova grew up with a strong interest in art, especially Italian Renaissance painting.

Lyubov Popova traveled widely to investigate and learn from diverse styles of painting, but it was the ancient Russian icons, the paintings of Giotto, and the works of the 15th- and 16th-century Italian painters which interested her the most.

Lyubov Popova was one of the first female pioneers in Cubo-Futurism.

Lyubov Popova embraced both of these ideals but eventually identified herself entirely with the aims of the Revolution working in poster, book design, fabric and theatre design, as well as teaching.

In 1916 she began to paint completely abstract Suprematist compositions, but the title "Painterly Architectonics" suggests that, even as a Suprematist, Lyubov Popova was more interested in painting as a projection of material reality than as the personal expression of a metaphysical reality.

Lyubov Popova's superimposed planes and strong color have the objective presence of actual space and materials.

In 1918 Lyubov Popova married the art historian Boris von Eding, and gave birth to a son.

Lyubov Popova worked in a broad range of mediums and disciplines, including painting, relief, works on paper, and designs for the theater, textiles, and typography.

Lyubov Popova did not join the Working Group of Constructivists when it was set up in Moscow in March 1921, but joined by the end of 1921.

From 1921 to 1924 Lyubov Popova became entirely involved in Constructivist projects, sometimes in collaboration with Varvara Stepanova, the architect Alexander Vesnin and Alexander Rodchenko.

Lyubov Popova produced stage designs: Vsevolod Meyerhold's production of Fernand Crommelynck's The Magnanimous Cuckold, 1922; her Spatial Force Constructions were used as the basis of her art teaching theory at Vkhutemas.

Lyubov Popova designed typography of books, production art and textiles, and contributed designs for dresses to LEF.

Lyubov Popova worked briefly in the Cotton Printing Factory in Moscow with Varvara Stepanova.

Lyubov Popova died at the peak of her artistic powers two days after the death of her son, from whom she had contracted scarlet fever in 1924 in Moscow.