20 Facts About Varvara Stepanova

Varvara Stepanova's activities extended into propaganda, poetry, stage scenery and textile designs.

Varvara Stepanova who was born in Kaunas came from peasant origins but was able to get an education at Kazan Art School, Kazan.

Varvara Stepanova designed Cubo-Futurist work for several artists' books, and studied under Jean Metzinger at Academie de La Palette, an art academy where the painters Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac and Henri Le Fauconnier taught.

Varvara Stepanova contributed work to the Fifth State Exhibition and the Tenth State Exhibition, both in 1919.

In 1921, together with Aleksei Gan, Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova formed the first Working Group of Constructivists, which rejected fine art in favor of graphic design, photography, posters, and political propaganda.

Also in 1921, Varvara Stepanova declared in her text for the exhibition 5x5=25, held in Moscow:.

Varvara Stepanova designed the sets for The Death of Tarelkin in 1922.

Alexander Rodchenko died on December 3,1956, and Varvara Stepanova died on May 20,1958, both in Moscow.

In 1921, Varvara Stepanova moved almost exclusively into the realm of production, in which she felt her designs could achieve their broadest impact in aiding the development of the Soviet society.

In line with this objective, Varvara Stepanova sought to free the body in her designs, emphasizing clothing's functional rather than decorative qualities.

Varvara Stepanova deeply believed clothing must be looked at in action.

Unlike the aristocratic clothing that she felt sacrificed physical freedom for aesthetics, Varvara Stepanova dedicated herself to designing clothing for particular fields and occupational settings in such a way that the object's construction evinced its function.

Varvara Stepanova, thus, identified clothing as occupying two groups: prozodezhda and sportodezhda.

Varvara Stepanova even rendered the team's emblem into a graphic design.

The sports arena offered a context for Varvara Stepanova to realize an idealized bodily neutralization, and her uniforms were often unisex with pants and a belted tunic that obscured the human form.

Varvara Stepanova carried out her ideal of engaging with industrial production in the following year when she, with Lyubov Popova, became designer of textiles at the Tsindel near Moscow, and in 1924 became professor of textile design at the Vkhutemas.

Varvara Stepanova only worked a little over a year at The First Textile Printing Factory, but she designed more than 150 fabric designs in 1924.

Varvara Stepanova practiced typography, book design and contributed to the magazine LEF throughout the early 1920s.

On October 22,2018, Varvara Stepanova was honoured with a Google Doodle posthumously on her 124th birthday.

Varvara Stepanova's work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.