Alexandra Exter - Amazons of the Avant-Garde

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

conTenTS

i3 inTroDUdion

Matthew Drutt

20 women of Genius

John E. Bowlt

39 six (anD a Few more) russian women of rae avam-GarDe TOGeTHer

Charlotte Douglas

59 BeTween old anD New, russia's moDern women

Laura Engelstein

75 GenDer TrouBLe in rae amazonian KinGDoni:

Turn-OF-THe-cenTurY represenTaTions of women in russia

Olga Matich

95 DressinGupanD DressmGDOwn: THe body of rue avam-GarDe

Nicoletta Uisler

109 creauve women, creauve Men, anD paraDiGms of creanviTY: why Have mere Been creaT women arTisTS?

Ekaterina Dyogot

i3i aLexanDra exTer

Essay by Georgii Kovalenko

155 naTana GoncHarova

Essay by Jane A. Sharp

185 LIUBOVPOPOVa

Essays by Natalia Adaskina and Dmitrii Sarabianov

ai3 OLGa rozanova

Essay by Nina Gurianova

241 varvara STepanova

Essay by Alexander Lavrentiev

271 naDezHDa UDarrsova

Essay by Vasilii Rakitin

298 DocumenTS

348 LIST OF PLaTeS/BIBLIOGraPHY

THe soLomon r. GUGGenHeim FOunDanon

Honorary TrusTees inperpeTuiTY

Solomon R. Guggenheim Justin K. Thannhauser Peggy Guggenheim

Honorary cHairman

Peter Lawson-Johnston

CHairman

Peter B. Lewis

vice-presiDems

Wendy L-J. McNeil John S. Wadsworth, Jr.

vice-presiDem anD Treasurer

Stephen C. Swid

Diredor

Thomas Krens

secreTary

Edward F. Rover

Honorary TrusTee

Claude Pompidou

TrusTees ex officio

Dakis Joannou Benjamin B. Rauch

TrusTees

Giovanni Agnelli JonlmanolAzua Peter M. Brant Mary Sharp Cronson Gail May Engelberg Daniel Filipacchi Martin D. Gruss Barbara Jonas David H. Koch Thomas Krens Barbara Lane Peter Lawson-Johnston Peter Lawson-Johnston II Samuel J. LeFrak Peter B. Lewis Wendy L-J. McNeil Edward H. Meyer Frederick W. Reid Richard A. Rifkind Denise Saul Terry Semel James B. Sherwood RajaW. Sidawi Seymour Slive Stephen C. Swid John S. Wadsworth, Jr. Cornel West John Wilmerding William T. Ylvisaker

Diredor EmeriTus

Thomas M. Messer

peGGY GUGGenHeim coLLecTion aDvisory BoarD

presiDem

Peter Lawson-Johnston

vice-presiDenT

The Earl Castle Stewart

Hononary CHairman

Claude Pompidou

Honorary co-CHairman

H.R.H The Grand Duchess of Luxembourg

Honorary memBer

Olga Adamishina

raeniBers

Luigi Agrati

Steven Ames

Giuseppina Araldi Guinetti

Maria Angeles Aristrain

Rosa Ayer

Marehese Annibale Berlingieri

Alexander Bernstein

Patti Cadby Birch

Davide Blei

Mary Bloch

Wilfred Cass

The Earl Castle Stewart

Claudio Cavazza

Fausto Cereti

Sir Trevor Chinn

Franca Coin

Isabella del Frate Eich

Rosemary Chisholm Feick

Mary Gaggia

David Gallagher

Danielle Gardner

Patricia Gerber

Marino Golinelli

Christian Habermann

Jacques Hachuel M. Gilbert W. Harrison W. Lawrence Heisey William M. Hollis. Jr Guglielmo La Scala Samuel H. Lindenbaum June Lowell Cristian Mantero Achille Maramotti Valeria Monti Luigi Moscheri Raymond D. Nasher Christina Newburgh Giovanni Pandini Annelise Ratti Benjamin B. Rauch Richard A. Rifkind Dodie Rosekrans Nanette Ross Miles Rubin Aldo Sacchi Sir Timothy Sainsbury Denise Saul Evelina Schapira Hannelore Schulhof James B. Sherwood Riki Taylor

Roberto Tronchetti Provera Melissa Ulfane Leopoldo Villareal F. Nancy Pierce Watts Ruth Westen Pavese

emeriTus memBers

Enrico Chiari William Feick, Jr. Evelyn Lambert Jacques E. Lennon Umberto Nordio Anna Scotti Kristen Venable

peGGY GUGGenHeim coLLecnon FamiLY commiTTee

David Helion

Fabrice Helion "f

Nicolas Helion

Laurence and Sandro Rumney

Clovis Vail

Julia Vail and Bruce Mouland

KaroleP.B. Vail

Mark Vail

OLGa rozanova

Non-Objective Composition (Flight of an Airplane), 1916 Oil on canvas, 118 x 101 cm Art Museum, Samara

preFace

THomas Krens

The Guggenheim Museum has a distinguished history in collecting and presenting the art of the Russian avant-garde. In 1929, Solomon R. Guggenheim met Vasily Kandinsky in his Bauhaus studio, beginning a relationship that would result in this pioneering Russian abstract painter becoming closely associated with the museum's permanent collection. Masterpieces by Russians Marc Chagall, Natalia Goncharova. Mikhail Larionov, El Lissitzky, and Kazimir Malevich were acquired by the museum early on, and remain some of our most treasured works.

Over the years we have mounted many exhibitions devoted to Russian artists, with no fewer than nineteen since 1945 devoted to Kandinsky alone. Other Russian masters honored by the Guggenheim include Malevich (1973), Chagall (1975 and 1993), and Naum Gabo (1986). In 1981, the Guggenheim organized Art oftheAvant-Garde in Russia: Selections from the George Costakis Collection-, a sweeping survey, it resulted in two publications that remain central to the scholarship on the subject. In 1992, we presented The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 19151932. which remains the most comprehensive investigation of the subject to date.

It is within this context that we are pleased to organize another historic exhibition of Russian art. Amazons of the Avant-Garde is a model of scholarship and curatorial acumen. It brings together distinguished masterpieces of the period, including many not shown in the West since they were created. This is the first traveling exhibition organized for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. Following Berlin and the Royal Academy, the presentation of the exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection offers an ideal setting for understanding the achievements of these artists against a background of works by other Russians as well as by the Parisian Cubists in Peggy Guggenheim's collection, and by the Italian Futurists, magnificently represented in the Gianni Mattioli Collection.

Curators John E. Bowlt, Matthew Drutt, and Zelfira Tregulova deftly organized this project, and I am grateful to them for their cooperation and hard work. We are indebted to the lenders to this exhibition, not only because they allowed us to borrow their treasured works, but because they have made important contributions to the scholarship of this publication. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Dr. Rolf-E. Breuer, Spokesman of the Board of Managing Directors of Deutsche Bank, for his ongoing support of the collaboration between our institutions. I am thankful for Deutsche Bank's enthusiasm for the project as well as its sponsorship of the tour.

LenDers to THe exHiBiTion

Art Co. Ltd. (George Costakis Collection)

Art Museum. Samara

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Krasnodar District Kovalenko Art Museum

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Elena Murina and Dmitrii Sarabianov, Moscow

MuseoThyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Museum of History and Architecture, Pereiaslavl-Zalesskii

Museum of Private Collections,

Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Moscow Museum of Visual Arts, Ekaterinburg National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kiev National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff Private Collection