Society and culture: The exhibition “Visiting Rodchenko and Stepanova” dedicated to masters of Russian avant-garde in Moscow

To the 120th birth anniversary of Varvara Feodorovna Stepanova the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow) opened the exhibition “Visiting Rodchenko and Stepanova”. The exposition is dedicated to leading masters of Russian avant-garde of 1910s-1920s, their art and teaching activity. More than 250 – painting, graphics, personal items from the Archive of A. Rodchenko and V. Steoanova, works of students of VKhUTEMAS, give an idea of the “House of Rodchenko and Stepanova” as “the territory of new art”.

Rodchenko and Stepanova all their life worked together, in the same style, often on common themes. The role of the leader, the generator of ideas and the creator of original techniques belonged to Rodchenko; Stepanova in her manner asserted notations and was a great organizer.

The exhibition covers the period of the early 1910s-mid 1930s. This allows tracing the development of the work of artists through the abstract and geometrical painting and graphics to constructivism. Rodchenko came to constructivism as a result of numerous art experiences; for him it was a transition from painting to design, from abstraction to reality.

“The future – is our only purpose”, - said Rodchenko and Stepanova. They gave a stimulus to the development of “the main art direction” of art of the XX century, that changed the style and image of the everyday life. “The picture, turning into a scientific experience, give a formula of a new form of life”, - wrote Stepanova.

The exhibition consists of nine thematic sections.

In the Department of collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is stored the heritage of Rodchenko and Stepanova donated in 1992 by Varvara Alexandrovna Rodchenko and Alexander Nikolayevich Lavrentiev. This is the largest collection of works of art in the world: it counts more than 600 items, presents the main periods of work and life and the whole specter of their activity: painting, original and printed graphics, works for theater, posters, production design, collages, photographs, spatial design.