CREATOR

Nadezhda Andreevna Udaltsova (Orel, January 11th, 1886; Moscow, January 25th, 1961) attended lessons at the studios of Ivan Dudin and Konstantin Yuon (1905-1909). In 1907 she met Vera Mukhina, Liubov Popova and Aleksandr Vesnin. In 1908 she traveled to Germany. In 1909, together with Vladimir Favorskii and Konstantin Istomin she worked at the private studio of Istvan Kiss, upon studies of space. In November 1912 she went to Paris, at the same time with Liubov Popova, where she studied at the Academie La Palette and visited the studios of Metzinger, Le Fauconnier and Segonzac. She studied the work of Picasso and Poussin, as well as the Dutch painting of the 17th century and medieval stained-glass windows. She was perhaps the one closest to the Paris school of all the artists of the Russian avant-garde. In 1913 she returned to Moscow, she worked at the studios of Tatlin and Morgunov, upon various issues of Cubism and collaborated with Popova and Vesnin. She participated in the Jack of Diamonds exhibition (Moscow, 1914) and in First Futurist Exhibition of Paintings: Tramway V (Petrograd, 1915), in the Last Futurist Exhibition of Pictures:0.10 (Petrograd, 1915-1916) and in The Store exhibition (Moscow, 1916). From 1916 to 1917 she was a member of the “Supremus” group and during the same period she also produced decorative designs for the Verbovka Textile Company in Ukraine. In 1917 she contributed to the design of the interior of the Café Pittoresque in Moscow. From 1918 onwards she taught at the Free State Art Studios (SVOMAS) in Moscow, initially as an assistant of Malevich and later as a professor of painting. In 1918 she joined the newspaper Anarchy and began working at The Visual Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment (IZO NARKOMPROS). In 1919 she became a member of the “Association of Extreme Innovators in Painting” together with Drevin, Rodchenko, Stepanova and Vesnin. She was a member of the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKHUK) during the years 1920-1921; she left with Drevin, Kandinsky, Kliun and Korolev, in disagreement over the rejection of pure easel art by the Constructivists-Productivists. From 1920 to 1930 she taught at the Higher State Art-Technical Studios (VKHUTEMAS) and then at the Textile Institute of Moscow. In 1922 she participated in the First Russian Art Exhibition, at the “Galerie van Diemen” in Berlin. In the late 1920s her painting depicts a naturalistic style, under the influence of her husband Drevin. She had shows with him at the State Russian Museum, in Leningrad (1928), and at the Cultural and Historical Museum in Erevan (1934). She also had a retrospective exhibition in Moscow (1945).