Alexandra Exter, one of the ‘amazons’ and brightest stars of the Russian avant-garde, took part in most significant shows of the new art, including exhibitions of ‘Jack of Diamonds’ group and ‘Union of Youth’, ‘№ 4’ and ‘Tram B’, ‘Shop’, ‘5×5=25’ and so on. One cannot imagine innovative Russian art of the early 20th century without this artist’s oeuvre.

Alexandra Exter was the originator of such a crucial trend in Russian art as Cubo-Futurism, a characteristic ‘Russian’ version of Futurism reflected in numerous abstract pieces, still-lives and townscapes. Exter was the conductor of new ideas in Russian painting, as she familiarized Russian viewers with the latest developments of Parisian avant-garde. As she was spending a lot of time in Paris, Exter was friends with Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Guillaume Apollinaire and many other brilliant figures of the time. She promoted their creation in Russia and, in her own work, demonstrated ways for Russian artists to adapt their discoveries.

Alexandra Exter contributed to the success of Russian theatre scene: three productions of the Chamber Theatre in Moscow that she designed — ‘Thamyris the Citharist’, ‘Salome’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ — are noted in the history of art as true masterpieces marked by costume and stage designs of amazing beauty. Other aesthetic landmarks in design of the time were Exter’s famous costumes of Martians made for ‘Aelita’, Yakov Protazanov’s film. Apart from that, Exter designed some exquisite fashion items and even uniform for the Red Army.

Alexandra Exter’s oeuvre equally belongs to France. Since the 1910s, Exter was involved in many important Paris exhibitions, such as the famous Salon of the Independents. Her art was appraised by prominent French critics — Guillaume Apollinaire, Waldemar George, Maurice Reynal and others. ‘Alexandra Exter. A Retrospective’ project was presented in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art during the summer 2010. The display included paintings, graphic pieces, costume and stage designs, as well as unique manuscript books (livres manuscrits) never exhibited before. For the first time ever, theatre works by Alexandra Exter were on view, including 60 pieces from the collection of A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum. The exhibition was curated by Georgy F. Kovalenko, PhD, head of the Department of 20th-Century Russian Art at the Scientific and Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Arts, and leading research fellow of the State Institute of Art History. Kovalenko stands among the main Exter biographers and is an authoritative expert in her art, author of two monographs and numerous articles published in Russia and abroad.

Victoria Gallery in Samara will host a reduced version of the Moscow show, with a slightly different corpus of exhibits. This display is also prepared by the team of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art together with curator Georgy Kovalenko.

During the opening in Victoria Gallery, the second volume of Georgy Kovalenko’s book on Alexandra Exter will be presented. This second volume covers works executed during the so called ‘Paris period’ of the artist’s oeuvre (after 1925). The vast majority of works from American and European collection have never been published before. The book includes a detailed timeline of Alexandra Exter’s life and work, a list of all her personal and group exhibitions in Russia and abroad, as well as an extensive bibliography. Rare archive materials should be specially noted, such as memoirs of Alexandra Exter’s contemporaries, her letters to Vera Mukhina, Alexander Tairov, Bronislava Nizhinskaya and others, plus the full scope of Exter’s theoretical writings.

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Victoria Gallery was founded in 2005 by Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of NOVATEK JCC. The priorities in the development of the gallery include support and promotion of artists coming from the Volga region, forming of the gallery collection, interaction and cooperation with private collectors. The gallery hosts Russian and international exhibitions and educational projects in conjunction with major museums and galleries. The gallery acts as a cultural center that organizes concerts, meetings with artists and other noteworthy events.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art and Victoria Gallery have a long and fruitful history of collaboration. For example, in 2005, Samara was the place for the exhibition entitled ‘Bible Stories: Salvador Dalí, Otto Dix, Ernst Fuchs’, which was organized by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Russian Academy of Arts and Kunstgalerien Böttingerhaus (Bamberg, Germany). In the autumn 2009, Victoria Gallery hosted the ‘Russian Avant-Garde’ exhibition with works by masters of the early 20th century from the collection of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. The display that brought together pieces by Kazimir Malevich, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Mashkov, Petr Konchalovsky, Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, David Burliuk and other well-known artists, attracted a huge audience in Samara.