She was born in St. Petersburg into the family of Dmitry Kapitonovich Bubnov (?–1914), a bank clerk of lower rank.

Her mother Anna Nikolaevna (maiden name Wolfe) (1854–1940) descended from an old noble Russian family and was distantly related to Alexander Pushkin.

She attended school with the soon-to-be famous Pavel Filonov and her future husband Voldemārs Matvejs, who was the first Russian researcher of African Art.

In 1910 she became a member of the Youth Union and participated in art exhibitions with Mayakovsky, Burlyuk, Larionov, Goncharova, and Malevich.

Bubnova lived in Moscow and worked for the Institute of Artistic Culture with among others Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Falk, Lyubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova and Alexander Rodchenko.