Born in 1897 in St. Petersburg. Her great-grandfather was a Saxon glassblower who settled in St. Petersburg. Her father was an agronomist (according to othersources, a gardener and botanist) of German origin. She had brothers Boris (18931960) and Yuri (1898-1963) and sister Ksenia (1895-1955).
Circa 1914 – graduated from Konstantinovsky Gymnasium.
From 1915 to 1918 – studied at the Petrograd Pedagogical Institute (verbal department).
Circa 1915 – got acquainted with and for a short period of time was a disciple of Kazimir Malevich.
1916 – got acquainted with the artist Mikhail Matyushin taking his painting, drawing and music classes. Until the end of the artist's life she remained his closest assistant, it was to her that Matyushin dictated his monograph, written by him shortly before his death.
From 1918 to 1922 - studied at the Petrograd State Free Workshops (the former Academy of Arts) with Mikhail Matyushin (Workshop of Spatial Realism).
Since 1922 – participated in exhibitions.
From 1923 to 1926 – worked as a researcher of the Organic Culture Department at the State Institute of Artistic Culture, acted as Head of the Department of the Use of Peripheral Perception of Color Form, headed the Laboratory of Color and Form of Fine Arts (GINKhUK, State Institute of Art History, Russian Museum). She also worked in the Laboratory of “Sight, Hearing, Touch” on the study of color-form in space. She carried out independent study of color (interval, tonality, and overtones in color). She made numerous reports and published scientific articles.
From 1927 to 1928, prepared works “Color and Color Combination”, “On Additional Form”, “Space and Form”, “Culture of static and dynamic color”, etc.
In 1920s-1930s, she worked at Institute of Art History as a consultant on the coloring of Leningrad buildings (train stations, Houses of Culture, etc.),
- Established the Laboratory of Color of the Research Cabinet of Modern Architecture at the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineers. Worked at the Brain Institute on the problem of color perception. Taught Color Science at the State Art and Industry Technical School. Taught Color Science at the Institute of Proletarian Fine Arts (the former Academy of Arts) at the Painting Faculty.
1932 - assisted Mikhail Matyushin in the preparation and publication of the Color Reference Book (including writing her Foreword to the Handbook).
1937 - participated in the design of the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris.
1939 - participated in the design of the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in New York.
1940 - participated in the color design of pavilions at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.
1942 - died in Leningrad during the Siege, buried in a mass grave at the Serafimovsky Cemetery
