Alexandra Exter

A pioneer of Russian cubo-futurist art, a fellow traveller with Kandinsky, Chagall and Zadkine, Alexandra Exter seems to have been inhabited by a prescience of what modern art would be. From 1907, she travelled between Russia and France. A student of Fernand Léger, she brought her Russian friends the first photographs of Picasso's cubist works. Her circle of friends, including Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Apollinaire, Gide and Bergson, took an interest in her creations.

Exter developed systems on which painting, theatre, film and ballet based their genesis in the 20th century and thus revolutionised stagecraft, with his geometric sets, moving sets, flamboyant costumes, and lighting, treated as a constructive material, exceptional sets.

This monograph of over 400 paintings and photographs examines Exter's life and career and his highly personal version of French Cubism.