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Three Costumed Figures ("Revue")

Three Costumed Figures ("Revue")

Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter

Alexandra Exter, a member of the Russian avant-garde, is best known as a futurist and constructivist. She worked in theater design in Kiev, Moscow, and Paris in the early decades of the 20th century, and the style of her three works in the Chazen probably can be traced to her cubist stage designs for ballet, film, and theater which she did in the teens and twenties. The Three Costumed Figures (1983.23 a-c) may have been models which Exter used to teach stage design or even models for an Nijinska ballet. The models seem weightless, able to fly off in space, and both the metal hoops suggesting the skirts and the extended limbs show bodies in motion.
Artist
Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter
(Russian, 1882 - 1949)
Title
Three Costumed Figures ("Revue")
Date
1927
Medium
Painted card and metal wire
Dimensions
11 11/16 in. H overall
Credit
Juli Plant Grainger, Cyril W. Nave, F. J. Sensenbrenner, and Malcolm K. and Bertha Whyte Endowment Funds, and Evjue Foundation Fund purchase
Accession No.
1983.23a-c
Classification
Sculpture
Geography
Russia

Related

1949, artist''s estate bequeathed to Simon Lissim (Dobbs Ferry, NY); by 27 June 1960, Simon Lissim to Madame Nehama Szmuszkowicz [Madame Moscovich] (Paris, France); May 1983, sold by Annely Juda Fine Art (London, England) to Elvehjem Museum of Art [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

  • Nakov, Andréi. "A Modern-day 'Modello: On Three Figurines by Alexandra Exter." Elvehjem Museum of Art Bulletin 1991-1993. Elvehjem Museum of Art (1993): 71-80. pp. 71-80
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Handbook of the Collection." Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, 1990. no. 121
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Bulletin 1983-1984." Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1984. p. 50
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Artscene." Vol. 9, No. 3, June/July/August 1993. p. 6
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Bulletin 1991-1993." Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1994. p. 70, no. 2
  • Kovalenko, Georgy. "Alexandra Exter." Kyiv: Rodovid Press, 2021. pp. 322-323, no. 221

  • Director's Legacy, A: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 10/7/1983–11/20/1983
  • Title Unknown [Alexandra Exter exhibition], 1930: Galerie des Quatre Chemins, Paris
  • Title Unknown [Alexandra Exter exhibition], 1927: Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin

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