Irina Shtenberg was a fascinating figure in the history of Russian and Georgian art, the Tbilisi avant-garde, and the art of the theater. She spent her youth in Gerogia, where she graduated from the Tbilisi Academy of Art in the 1926, studying under Evgeny Lansere and Gigo Gabashvili.

Moving to Moscow in 1929, Shtenberg became a member of the artistic elite, working and exhibiting with Akimov, Tishler, and members of the '13' artist group. With the support of Anatoly Lunacharsky, Soviet Peopel's Commissar of Education, she had first solo exhibtion in Moscow.

While in Moscow, she contributed to influential journals such as Rost and 30 dney. Unfortunately for Shtenberg, her husband, the high-ranking party functio...