On view through January 25, 2025, Vienna gallery Layr is presenting “Anna Andreeva: Works 1953–1980,” offering a sweeping look at the Soviet artist’s work as a textile designer and her singular approach to 20th-century Modernism. The exhibition comes at a major moment for Andreeva, who is undergoing a revival of interest and reappraisal. Concurrently, the Metropolitan Organization of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMus) is showing “Collective Threads: Anna Andreeva at the Red Rose Silk Factory” through April 27, 2025, the very first retrospective dedicated to the artist. The retrospective is complemented by a 240-page, fully illustrated exhibition catalogue.
Collective Threads: Anna Andreeva at the Red Rose Silk Factory, edited by Christina Kiaer. Scheidegger/Spiess, Zurich, 2025.
While the Andreeva retrospective is the first for the artist, the publication too marks a momentous first: it is the first of its kind outside of the former Soviet Union and Russia dedicated to the art of Andreeva and the greater survey of Soviet fabric design at large. Taking sharp focus on the collective creative work of women artists and designers, including tracing the textile designs made by women in the 1920s through to the Soviet avant-garde in the post-war period, the book illuminates a significant component to modern material culture. Further, it expands and diversifies commonly held ideas around what is considered art, elevating the position of traditionally women-led practices.
Installation view of “Anna Andreeva: Les Fleurs” (2023). Courtesy of Layr, Vienna.
Born in 1917 in Tambov during the then Russian Empire, Andreeva hailed from a merchant family whose property was seized by the Red Army, leading her to live with relatives in Moscow. She studied at the Moscow Textile Institute and ultimately began working as a textile designer. Later, Andreeva joined the Red Rose Silk Factory—a silk mill—in Moscow and was recognized as their leading artist between 1946 and 1984. Through both her designs for the Red Rose as well as her multimedia works throughout this period, with many examples from this period featured in the Layr exhibition, Andreeva’s practice speaks to the Modernist and avant-garde inclinations of the time and her unique approach to color, pattern, and composition.
Anna Andreeva, Flowers-Stars (1958). Photo: kunst-dokumentationen.com. Courtesty of the Estate of Anna Andreeva and Layr, Vienna.
The confluence of multiple solo shows and the forthcoming release of “Collective Threads: Anna Andreeva at the Red Rose Silk Factory” presents an important moment for Andreeva’s legacy, introducing her life and work to a broader audience, but also an opportunity to reevaluate the development of Modernism overall. Bringing to light the work of women artists in the Soviet era, as well as those working in mediums oft overlooked by the art historical canon, the trajectory of post-war art through to the contemporary period is thus complicated and made richer by offering a more dynamic and inclusive spectrum of creators, cultures, and practices.
Installation view of “Anna Andreeva: Works 1953–1980” (2024). Courtesy of Layr, Vienna.
“Anna Andreeva: Works 1953–1980” is on view at Layr, Vienna, through January 25, 2025.