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Anna Andreeva was one of the most successful textile artists in the Soviet Union. After studying textile design, Andreeva worked from 1941 onwards as a leading designer at the renowned state-run Red Rose Silk Factory, named after Rosa Luxemburg.
Although at the time only the highly figurative style of Socialist Realism was accepted, she created innovative fabric designs that skilfully subverted the repressive political system. Her geometric designs were adored by many, mostly female, public figures in the Soviet Union. For instance, Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of the last President of the Soviet Union, who died in 2022, wore the fresh striped patterns in a cover photograph for the US magazine ‘Time’ to present herself as a cosmopolitan, charming figure. The fact that Anna Andreeva was able to work as an artistically revolutionary designer in this context at all was down to her impressive originality.
Inspired by modernist Constructivism – a movement long since abolished by the state – Andreeva created works featuring geometric cube patterns. On her innovative fabrics, one discovers combinations of numbers and ornaments that seem to reference algorithmic structures. As early as 1978, she devised a design resembling the QR code that is now widely used. Reportedly, a visitor to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow was unable to take a photo of one of her works with their smartphone, as the phone required the use of the QR scanner.