Oleksandra Ekster (Exter, née Grigorovich) (b. Białystok, Russian Empire, 1882 – d. 1949, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France) was a painter and designer. She was born in Białystok, in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Poland) to a wealthy Belarusian family. Her family moved to Kyev, and she graduated in painting from KievArt School in 1906. As a young woman, her studio in Kyev attracted all the city’s creative luminaries, and she became a figure of the Paris salons, mixing with Picasso, Braque, and others. She is identified with the avant-garde, as a Cubo-futurist, Constructivist, and influencer of the Art Deco movement. From 1908 to 1924, she intermittently lived in Kyiv, St. Petersburg, Odesa, Paris, Rome, and Moscow. In 1924, Oleksandra Ekster and her husband emigrated to France and settled in Paris, where she initially became a professor at the Academie Moderne. In 2023, a street in Kyiv was named after Oleksandra Ekster, who lived in this city for 35 years.
