Varvara Stepanova

(b Kovno [now Kaunas, Lithuania], 5 Nov 1894; d Moscow, 20 May 1958). Russian painter and designer of Lithuanian birth. She trained at the Kazan' School of Art (c. 1910-11) where she met Aleksandr Rodchenko, whom she subsequently married. In 1912 she moved to Moscow where she attended the Stroganov School (1913-14) and studied with Konstantin Yuon and Il'ya Mashkov. In 1919 Stepanova became involved with the Futurist poets, composing zaum' ('transrational') poetry herself and producing collaged and handwritten books, including Rtny Khomle, Zigra ar and her masterpiece Gaust Chaba (all 1918; copies in St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), in which she wrote her zaum' text on newspaper. After the Revolution, Stepanova worked in the Museums office of the Department of Fine Arts (IZO) in Narkompros (the People's Commissariat for Enlightenment) and from c. 1921 taught at the Academy of Social Education.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

A leading Russian Constructivist artist, graphic, and costume and set designer Stepanova was best known for her textile and clothing designs and, like her husband Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin, became committed to utilitarian designs geared to social needs and economic mass production. After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Kazan from 1910 to 1911 she moved to Moscow where she studied at the Stroganoff School of Applied Art from 1913 to 1914. After working with avant-garde abstract forms she was, from 1920, an active member of Inhuk (the Institute of Artistic Culture) which had been established in 1920. In the following year, with her husband Rodchenko and others, she became involved with Productivism—the mass-production of industrial and applied art (See Constructivism). She designed utilitarian workers' clothing, strongly coloured, geometrically patterned sportswear, and theatre costumes and sets, such as that for The Death of Tarelkin produced by Meyerhold in Moscow in 1922. She also taught at the Moscow Vkhutemas and, in the mid-1920s, produced many designs for mass-produced cotton textiles often characterized by flat, coloured abstract patterns. In the same period she contributed to a number of avant-garde periodicals such as LEF (1923-5) and Novy LEF (1927) and increasingly devoted her attention to book and periodical design, often in conjunction with her husband Rodchenko, with whom she collaborated closely on photographic albums in the 1930s. After the Second World War she worked on the periodical the Soviet Woman (1945-6).

1920s. Rodchenko and Stepanova

Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova (Russian: Варвара Фëдоровна Степанова November 9, 1894^[1]-1958), was a Russian artist associated with the 'Constructivist' movement.

She came from peasant origins but was fortunate enough to get an education at Kazan School of Art, Odessa. There she met her life-long friend and collaborator Alexander Rodchenko. In the years before the Russian Revolution of 1917 they leased an apartment in Moscow, owned by Wassily Kandinsky. These artists became some of the main figures in the Russian avant-garde. The new abstract art in Russia which began around 1909, was a culmination of influences from Cubism, Italian Futurism and traditional peasant art. She designed Cubo-Futurist work for several artists' books.

In the years following the revolution, Stepanova contributed work to the Fifth State Exhibition and the Tenth State Exhibition, both in 1919. In 1920 came a division between painters like Kasimir Malevich who continued to paint with the idea that art was a spiritual activity, and those who believed that they must work directly for the revolutionary development of the society. Stepanova declared in her text for the exhibition 5x5=25, held in Moscow in 1921:

'Composition is the contemplative approach of the artist. Technique and Industry have confronted art with the problem of construction as an active process and not reflective. The 'sanctity' of a work as a single entity is destroyed. The museum which was the treasury of art is now transformed into an archive'.

The term 'Constructivist' was by then being used by the artists themselves to describe the direction their work was taking. The theatre was another area where artists were able to communicate new artistic and social ideas. Stepanova designed the sets for The Death of Tarelkin in 1922. She carried out her ideal of engaging with industrial production in the following year when she, with Popova, became designer of textiles at the Tsindel (the First State Textile Factory) near Moscow, and in 1924 became professor of textile design at the Vkhutemas (Higher Technical Artistic Studios) while continuing typography, book design and contributing to the magazine LEF.

Contents 1 References 2 Sources 3 See also 4 External links

References

1. ^ http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/obras_ficha_biografia742.html

Sources

• The Russian Experiment in Art, Camilla Gray, Thames and Hudson,1976
• Avant-garde Russe, Andrei Nakov, Art Data, 1986

See also

• Anti-art (Note: it is disputed, whether or not artwork associated with Varvara Stepanova is indeed "anti-art," or not)

External links

• Art engineers: Rodchenko and Stepanova (in Russian) – biographical article

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