Liubov Popova

Lyubov Popova made some of the boldest abstract paintings of the Russian avant-garde. Her “painterly architectonics” are built from overlapping planes of strong colour, angled and layered so they seem to press forward and recede at the same time.

Born near Moscow, she studied in Moscow and then in Paris in 1912 and 1913 with Henri Le Fauconnier and Jean Metzinger, where she absorbed Cubism. Back in Russia she moved quickly through Cubo-Futurism and Suprematism to Constructivism. In the 1920s she turned to design, creating the stage set for Meyerhold’s The Magnanimous Cuckold in 1922 and fabrics for a Moscow textile factory. She died in Moscow in 1924, aged 35. Birsk is in the Guggenheim, and the Russian Museum and Tretyakov Gallery hold major works.

Look at how her flat planes seem to overlap like cut paper while the colours stay clean.