St. Petersburg, Russia 1900-1985 Petrodvorets, Russia

(1900, Saint-Petersburg – 1985, Petergof) Tatiana Glebova was a prominent Russian painter, graphic artist, illustrator and stage designer. A devoted student of Pavel Filonov, she was a core member of the Masters of Analytic Art collective, participating in their seminal exhibitions. Her early work fused meticulous detail with rich symbolism, drawing from religious, folkloric and psychological themes. Glebova gained recognition illustrating Soviet children’s journals like Yozh and Chizh. During her World War II evacuation to Almaty, she worked at Kazakhfilm, a state-run film studio, and met artist Vladimir Sterligov, her future husband. Back in St. Petersburg together, they developed the ‘cup-cupola’ theory – a metaphysical system imagining Earth as a bowl beneath a domed sky, guiding a new approach to spatial representation in painting. Despite limited exposure, Glebova remained committed to esoteric experimentation, later developing ‘paradise painting’, characterised by luminous abstraction. Her legacy quietly shaped post-Suprematist and mystical directions in Russian art. Qonaqtar features her Kazakhstan drawing series, mostly landscapes, as well as later cup-cupola drawings, alongside a similar body of work by her husband Vladimir Sterligov. Her story is one of migration and the creative ties it nourished, another red-thread in the exhibition.