Nina Genke was born in
Moscow. Her father Genrikh Genke was
Dutch, and her mother Nadezhda Tikhanova was Russian.
In 1912 she graduated from Levandovskaya Private Gymnasium in Kiev. She received a title to teach Russian language and history.
In 1913 she started to teach history, geography and drawing in the Higher Primary College for Women in Skoptsi. It was Skoptsi where her inspiration to art sprang to life. There Nina Genke met an artist Yevgenia Pribylska who was a head of the Art Studio in a Folk Center.
In 1914 she began attending
Aleksandra Ekster’s studio in
Kiev for her art education.
From 1915 to 1919 she was an assistant in Ekster's studio. At the same time Nina Genke worked as an artist in
Skoptsi (
Skoptsy) Village Folk Centre with supervisor
Yevgeniya Pribilskaya and in the
Verbovka Village Folk Centre, founded by N. Davidova.
She was closely connected with the
Supremus group that was led by
Kazimir Malevich, the founder of
Suprematism.
After 1915, Nina Genke worked as a head and a chief artist of the Verbovka Village Folk Centre (province in Kiev). She attracted famous avant-garde artists such as Kazimir Malevich,
Nadezhda Udaltsova, Aleksandra Ekster, Ivan Kliun, Ivan Puni, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Ksenia Boguslavskaya and others to the creative peasant artisans Co-operative.
In the period after the
October Revolution of 1917, she participated in decorating the streets of Kiev and
Odessa for Revolution Festivities together with Aleksandra Ekster and
Kliment Red'ko, involved herself in designing grandiose shows, as well as, a book
graphic design.
Nina Genke was a chief artist of the
Golfstream futuristic publishing house led by poet-
Futurist, Mykhail Semenko.
During the period 1920-1924 she taught art in the All-Ukrainian State Center Studio.
Nina Genke also held a position of the Deputy Head of the Board on Fine Arts in
Vserabis.
Later Nina Genke worked as an
interior designer, a scenographer, a supervisor of decorative and applied arts institutions, etc.
She was married to
Vadim Meller.
Nina Genke-Meller died in Kiev.
