Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) Textile Design 4, Step 4

Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958)

Textile Design 4, Step 4

Gouache in colours, with a second design in black verso, 1923-24, on smooth wove paper, sheet 140 x 228mm (5 ½ x 9in) (framed)

Provenance:

The estate of the artist.

Ex-coll. of Modern Art Oxford, deaccessioned in 2013.

Exhibited:

Oxford, Museum of Modern Art, Art in Production: Soviet Textiles, Fashion and Ceramics, 1917-35, 1984.

Varvara Stepanova was a constructivist artist, and the wife of Alexander Rodchenko. After initially working all media, she decided to dedicate her output to creating functional design, where she felt her work would most benefit the greater Soviet Society. To this end, in 1921 she almost exclusively dedicated herself to clothing and textile design. She spent a year as designer of textiles and the Tsindel (The First State Textile Factory), her abstract textiles were designed to be looked at as they were worn, and clothing was specifically tailored to match the needs of the wearer, garments were meticulously constructed to be both exciting to look at and highly practical to wear.

In 1924, Stepanova left the Tsindel to become the professor of textile design at the Vkhutemas: The Higher Art and Technical Design Studio, Moscow, where she also pursued her interest in typography and book design as a regular contributor to the magazine LEF (Left Front of the Arts).