Genia Rubin

Painter, photographer, writer. Distant relative of Wassily Kandinsky. Born as Yevgeny Rubin in the family of German Rubin in Kiev (1906). Lived in the Urals and Moscow (until 1927). Worked as an assistant set designer at the Konstantin Stanislavsky Opera Studio in Moscow (1926). Lived in Berlin and worked as a film cameraman (1927–29, 1931–35). Lived in Paris (1929–31 and from 1935), working at Pathe Studios and photographing for Femina and Harper’s Bazaar. Took up painting following a meeting with Wassily Kandinsky (late 1930s). Met André Breton (1947) and Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova (1959). Influenced by Breton, worked in the Surrealist style and then in the traditions of Cubo-Futurism. Photographed the works of Larionov and Goncharova, helping to hold their exhibitions (from 1959). Author of publications in The Russian Idea and books of memoirs. Died in Paris (2001). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1947). Contributed to International Surrealism (Paris, 1947), Contemporary Russian Art (Paris, 1976), group exhibitions of French artists (1970s, 1980s) and ond one-man shows in Paris (1975), London, Basle, Freiburg, Gothenburg, Berlin and Zurich (1970s–80s).