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Alexandra Exter (1882-1949), artist, theatrical designer and teacher, was one of the ‘amazons’ of the early 20th century avant-garde movement. She was born in 1882 in Bilostok (now Białystok in Poland) into a Ukrainian family and studied at the Kyiv School of Art (1901-3, 1906-7) and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris (1909).
In Paris Exter became acquainted with the Cubists Picasso and Braque and the Italian Futurists Marinetti and Papini. She participated in exhibitions of Futurist art and was a member of the Union of Youth and Jack of Diamonds groups. She was a co-founder of Kil'tse (The Circle), a group of Ukrainian avant-garde artists in Kyiv (1914), and the founder of the Kyiv school of Cubo-Futurist and Constructivist theatre design. In 1916 she designed stage sets for the Tairov Theatre in Moscow, as well as ballet sets for the Kyiv studio of Bronislava Nijinska.
Exter taught in the Children's Art School in Odesa (1918), in her own studio of decorative art in Kyiv (1918-20) and in Moscow (1921-22). After emigrating to Paris in 1924 she taught at the Léger Academy of Contemporary Art in Paris and in her own studio. She died in 1949 in Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris.