Alexandra (Alexandrovna) Exter

(b Belostok, Russia [now Bialystok, Poland], 6 Jan 1882; d Fontenay-aux-Roses, Paris, 17 March 1949). Russian painter and designer of Polish birth. After graduating in 1906 from art school in Kiev, Exter married in 1908 and went to Paris, where she studied at the Acad?mie de la Grande Chaumi?re. The following year she rented a studio in Paris and became acquainted with Picasso, Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob and with the Italian Futurists Filippo Marinetti, Giovanni Papini and Ardengo Soffici (with whom she shared a studio in 1914). In Paris she also attended the Vasil'yeva Free Russian Academy, where Fernand L?ger gave two important lectures on modern art. In the years 1909-14 Exter travelled extensively between Paris, Moscow and Kiev, playing an important role in disseminating Cubist and Futurist ideas among the Russian avant-garde. She participated in many important avant-garde exhibitions in Russia and the Ukraine, including David Burlyuk's Link (Kiev, 1908), the first and second Izdebsky Salons (Odessa, 1909-10; Kiev and St Petersburg, 1910-11), and the first and last shows of the Union of Youth in St Petersburg (1910 and 1913-14). She also exhibited in Paris at the Section d'Or (1912) and at the Salon des Ind?pendants (1912 and 1914), and in Rome at the International Futurist Exhibition (1914).

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