About This Artwork

Alexandra Exter
Russian, born Belostok (now Bialystok, Poland), 1882–1949

Robot, 1926

Cardboard, fabric, wood, glass, and string
h. 20 in. (50.8 cm)
none
Block, Serlin and Saidenberg Fund; through prior gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison, Arthur Keating, Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation, 1990.133

Joining an unusually large group of women—including Natalia Gontcharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, and Nadezhda Udaltsova—Alexandra Exter played a vital role in the development of Russian avant-garde art. Never affiliated with a particular movement, her work was nonetheless extremely influential.

With great wit and ingenuity, Exter drew upon many of the most revolutionary developments in early 20th-century art: the widespread fascination with machines and mechanical beings; the use of unorthodox materials; the trend toward geometric abstraction; and the expanded definition of art that includes previously neglected traditions, such as non-Western, folk, and the applied arts.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

New York, Rachel Adler Gallery, Towards the “Restructuring of the Universe,” May 3–June 7, 1986, no. 5.

New York, Rachel Adler Gallery, Woman Artists in the Avant Garde: 1910–1935, November 10–December 15, 1984, no. 10.

Publication History

M. N. Yablonskaya, Women Artists of Russia’s New Age 1900–1935 (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990), p. 139 (ill.).

James N. Wood, Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpure (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1996) p. 52 (ill.).

Ownership History

Rachel Adler Gallery, New York, by 1990. Purchased by Art Institute, 1990.