• Painter and Designer Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster, 1882
• Painter and Designer Ivan Vasilyevich Kliun, 1873

In Paris, Aleksandra Ekster was a personal friend of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who introduced her to Gertrude Stein.

In 1914, Ekster participated in the Salon des Indépendants exhibitions in Paris, together with Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Archipenko, Vadym Meller, Sonia Delaunay - Terk and other French and Russian artists. In that same year she participated with the “Russians” Archipenko, Koulbine and Rozanova in the International Futurist Exhibition in Rome. In 1915 she joined the group of avant garde artists Supremus.

Ekster absorbed from many sources and cultures in order to develop her own original style. In 1915 - 1916 she worked in the peasant craft cooperatives in the villages Skoptsi and Verbovka along with Kazimir Malevich, Yevgenia Pribylskaya, Natalia Davidova, Nina Genke, Liubov Popova, Ivan Puni, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova and others. Ekster later founded a teaching and production workshop (MDI) in Kiev (1918 - 1920). Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytsky, Kliment Red'ko, Tchelitchew, Shifrin, Nikritin also worked there. Also during this period she was one of the leading names of Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theater.

In 1919 together with the avant garde artists Kliment Red'ko and Nina Genke - Meller she decorated the streets and squares of Kiev and Odessa in abstract style for the Revolution Festivities. She worked with Vadym Meller as a costume designer in a Ballet Studio of the dancer Bronislava Nijinska (Vaslav Nijinsky's sister).

In 1921 she became a director of the elementary course Color at the Higher Artistic - Technical Workshop (VKhUTEMAS) in Moscow, a position she held until 1924. Her work was displayed alongside that of other Constructivist artists at the 5x5=25 exhibition held in Moscow in 1921.

In 1924, Aleksandra Ekster and her husband emigrated to France and settled in Paris. Initially she became a Professor at the Academie der Moderne in Paris. From 1926 to 1930 Ekster was a professor at Fernand Léger's Académie d'Art Contemporain. In 1933 she began creating extremely beautiful and original illuminated manuscripts (gouache on paper), which are beyond doubt the most important works of the last phase of her life. The "Callimaque" manuscript (c. 1939, the text being a French translation of a hymn by Hellenistic poet Callimachus) is widely regarded as her masterpiece. In 1936 she participated in the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art in New York and went on to have solo exhibitions in Prague and in Paris. She was a book illustrator for the publishing company Flammarion in Paris from 1936 until her death in the Paris suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses. During the past few decades her reputation has increased dramatically, as have the prices of her works. As a consequence, hundreds of fakes have appeared on the market in recent years, and virtually all of the recent monographs on Exter were published for the sole purpose of making such fakes appear to be authentic.
   
   

His father was a carpenter. In 1881, seeking to improve their economic condition, the family moved to Kyiv. In 1890, they moved again, to Russian Poland. He received his initial artistic education at the Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts [pl] in Warsaw, in the 1890s, while working as an accountant. In 1898, he relocated to Moscow, where he frequented the studios of Fyodor Rerberg and Ilya Mashkov.

His most important contact, however, came in 1907 when he met Kazimir Malevich and was introduced to the Russian Avant-Garde. This influenced him profoundly, although he joined the Moscow Salon when it was created in 1910 and remained a member until 1916. He originally worked in the Symboloist style but, in 1913, due to the influence of Malevich, he began exhibiting with a group from St. Petersburg known as the "Soyuz Molodyozhi" (Union of Youth). At this time, he became fond of Cubo - Futurism, began producing sculpture (under the influence of Vladimir Tatlin and later exhibited with several other Avant Garde groups.

In 1915, he provided lithographs and a short chapter for the book, Тайные пороки академиков (The Secret Vices of Academicians) by the poet Aleksei Kruchyonykh. The book was a harsh criticism of Symbolism and decadence in general. That same year he became a follower of Malevich's Suprematism and, the following year, joined his group known as Supremus. While there, he helped prepare a manifesto and a journal that was never published. He also collaborated with the Verbovka Village Folk Centre; working with peasant artisans.

From 1918 to 1921, he was a professor at Vkhutemas, the state art and technical school. From 1920, he was a member of Inkhuk (the Institute of Artistic Culture) and, after 1921, a Corresponding Member of GAHN (State Academy of Art Sciences).