Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) was a painter, photographer and designer. She was influential as a member of a group of artists who worked in the Russian avant-garde movement and, later in her career, she would refer to herself as a constructivist. Her work shows a direct influence of the Cubists and the Futurist art movements and she spent her career dedicated to trying to use her work to create revolutionary change within society. As a designer she created everything from posters and books to sets and costumes for local theaters. She became so involved with the world of theater design that she even designed textiles for use in the manufacturing of the costumes for the productions she helped design. Her work, along with the work of the rest of the Russian avant-garde and Constructivist artists, helped pave the way for all modern day graphic designers as they created art with a purpose in hopes of bettering the society in which they lived. Stepanova began her art training at the Kazan School of Art in 1910. One of her classmates was Alexander Rodchenko who would become a lifelong work partner and her future husband. In 1913, she moved to Moscow and continued her training at the renowned Stroganov Academy. Through the 1910s, Stepanova would participate in the Russian futurist movement, producing highly experimental non-objective and zaum poetry. In these works she destroyed conventional language and constructed new meaning: as a great innovator, this is a strategy she would employ throughout her life. The years 1919 and 1920 were momentous for Stepanova. In 1919 she participated in the iconic 10th State Exhibition: Non Objective Creativity and Suprematism, and in 1920 joined the Institute of Higher Culture’s (INKhUK) discussions that were indispensable in shaping Constructivism’s trajectory. After Vsevolod Meyerhold — still considered the period’s most avant-garde theater director — saw her geometric works at the 5x5=25 exhibition, he immediately hired her to create costume and set design. Her stage contraptions for Death of Tarelkin (1922), and later Earth Rampant (1923) were some of the earliest examples of Constructivist design for the realm of theater. Among Stepanova’s most remarkable accomplishments of the 1920s however, was her work at the First State Textile Factory in Moscow. Many Constructivists dreamed of creating art that would be useful in Soviet everyday life. Stepanova and her colleague Liubov Popova succeeded when they mass-produced their textile designs. In addition to theory, graphic arts, theater design and textile design, Stepanova also contributed to the period’s key publications. In 1925 she made collages for the magazine Kino-Fot, and between 1923-1927, wrote for the magazine LEF, and designed layouts for USSR in Construction. She would also create a single-volume publication V. V. Mayakovsky, with maps of Mayakovsky’s trips through the Soviet Union. Stepanova continued to paint, design, and innovate until her death in 1958.

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