Alexandra Lukashevker
1925 -1992
Short bio
1925: born in Moscow.
1941-1945: student of the Saratov Art and Teacher-Training College and the Art College of Moscow Region.
1951: graduated from the Moscow Higher Art-Industrial School.
1963: joined the Soviet Artists' Union.
1972: awarded a diploma of the Art Foundation of the Russian Federation for mosaic compositions at the «Volga» Movie House in Moscow.
In the late 70s Alexandra Lukashevker began to experiment with a new art form: embroidery on cloth in silk, thick thread, wool, etc. On several occasions she displayed these compositions at exhibitions of monumental art, held by the corresponding section of the Artists' Onion, where they evoked considerable interest.
1992: died in Moscow.
Arist's path
Alexandra Lukashevker specialized in monumental painting, usually working together with several artists of kindred spirit, such as Boris Chernyshov and Tamara Shilovskaya. She designed mosaic compositions that she set up with her own hands; the exquisite rose bouquets, which she sketched in white-on-black for a project in Dzhankoi (the Crimea), are characteristic of her noble ornamental style. This, and other unrealized projects, left her (in her own words) with a feeling of "groping for higher achievement".
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Her work was always marked by an elegant rhythmic pattern and refined decorativeness. This explains why the finest part of Lukashevker's heritage consists of smaller-size works with a warmly personal note: paintings (mostly landscapes), numerous pen drawings and highly original miniature embroidered compositions that she started to make towards the end of her life. It is safe to say that she was a born and extremely cultivated painter with an impeccable perception of colour and a gift of constructive rhythmic and spatial cohesion when-ever she took a motif from life.
Lukashevker worked in oil, but her pieces have a light, airy texture, resembling that of fresco painting, thanks to her free, generous brushstrokes and minimal employment of heavy, dark hues; these she usually replaced with silvery blue and purple. Her drawings are filled with fine, sparingly applied lines that suggest musical vibrations, with the artist's pen gliding over the paper. She herself likened her work to touching the object with the pen so as to convey every precious detail.
Last but not least, there are Lukashevker's embroidered pieces, which are quite unique because she treated embroidery in a purely painterly manner. She put her stitches on the material as if they were tiny dots of colour, with the same precision and lack of concern for strict overall regularity. The stitches have a coloristic rather than textural relationship with the background and the proximate stitches. That is why these diminutive embroidered landscapes, miniature female heads and flowers are endowed both with a sophisticated decorative effect and with a purely painterly cohesion of colouring and plastic interpretation.
Yuri Gherchuk
Exhibitions:
1955: exhibition of Moscow watercolourists.
1958: Fourth Exhibition of Young Moscow Artists.
1960: exhibition of Moscow's women artists held for the 50-th anniversary of the International Woman's Day.
1962: exhibition of monumental art. Moscow.
1971: exhibition of monumental art representing three cities (Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev), staged in Moscow for the symposium «Synthesis of Architecture and Monumental Art» (held in the German Democratic Republic).
1973: exhibition "Artists for the Benefit of the City", Moscow.
1975: exhibition of works by Moscow's women artists dedicated to the International Year of Women.
Collections:
Lukashevker's oils are stored in the studio of sculptor Elena Munts. A small part of her works is in the keeping of the artists Larisa Chudnovskaya and Tamara Shilovskaya.
After her death her friends honoured her wish and handed over a number of her works as a gift to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Regrettably, the museum failed to keep its promise and has not held a solo show of the artist's works.
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