Artist

Kazimir Malevich

1879–1935 · Russian / Soviet, born in Kyiv

Kazimir Malevich moved through Symbolism, Primitivism and Cubo-Futurism before announcing Suprematism in Petrograd in 1915. At the 0.10 exhibition he presented a new visual system based on simple geometric forms suspended in open space, with Black Square functioning as its most famous emblem. The project quickly expanded into paintings, drawings, theoretical texts, teaching and architectural models. After the Revolution, Malevich taught in Vitebsk and Petrograd/Leningrad and developed Suprematism as both a pictorial language and a broader philosophy of nonobjective form. By the late 1920s he returned to figurative painting, particularly peasant subjects and austere portraits, while retaining the structural compression of his abstract work.

Painting; drawing; printmaking; design; art theory