Malevich, Kasimir
TIMELINE:
Pure Abstraction
Malevich, Kasimir
(1878-1935).
Russian painter and designer, with
Mondrian
the most important pioneer of geometric
abstract art.
Born near Kiev; trained at
Kiev School of Art and Moscow Academy of Fine Arts; 1913 began creating
abstract geometric patterns in style he called suprematism; taught painting
in Moscow and Leningrad 1919-21; published book,
The Nonobjective World
(1926), on his theory; first to exhibit abstract geometric paintings; strove
to produce pure, cerebral compositions; famous painting
White on White
(1918) carries suprematist theories to absolute conclusion; Soviet politics
turned against modern art, and he died in poverty and oblivion.
Contributors:
Mark Harden and
Carol Gerten-Jackson.
He began working in an unexceptional
Post-Impressionist
manner, but by 1912 he was painting peasant subjects in a massive
`tubular' style similar to that of
Léger
as well as pictures combining the fragmentation of form of
Cubism
with the multiplication of the image of
Futurism
(The Knife Grinder,
Yale Univ. Art Gallery, 1912).
Malevich, however, was fired with the desire `to free art from
the burden of the object' and launched the
Suprematist movement,
which brought abstract art to a geometric simplicity more radical
than anything previously seen. He claimed that he made a picture
`consisting of nothing more than a black square on a white field'
as early as 1913, but Suprematist paintings were first made public
in Moscow in 1915 and there is often difficulty in dating his work.
(There is often difficulty also in knowing which way up his paintings
should be hung, photographs of early exhibitions sometimes providing
conflicting evidence.)
Malevich moved away from absolute austerity, tilting rectangles from
the vertical, adding more colors and introducing a suggestion of the
third dimension and even a degree of painterly handling, but around 1918
he returned to his purest ideals with a series of
White on White
paintings.
After this he seems to have realized he could go no further along this road
and virtually gave up abstract painting, turning more to teaching, writing,
and making three-dimensional models that were important in the growth of
Constructivism.
In 1919 he started teaching at the art school at Vitebsk, where he exerted
a profound influence on Lissitzky, and in 1922 he moved to Leningrad,
where he lived for the rest of his life. He visited Warsaw and Berlin in
1927, accompanying an exhibition of his works and visited the
Bauhaus.
In the late 1920s he returned to figurative painting, but was out of favor
with a political system that now demanded Socialist
Realism
from its artists and he died in neglect. However, his influence on abstract
art, in the west as well as Russia, was enormous. The best collection of
his work is in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
-
Reaper on Red Background
1912-13; Oil on canvas, 115 x 69 cm (45 1/4 x 27 1/8 in);
Fine Arts Museum, Gorki
-
An Englishman in Moscow
1914; Oil on canvas, 88 x 57 cm (34 5/8 x 22 1/2 in);
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
-
Soldier of the First Division
1914; Oil and collage on canvas, 53.6 x 44.8 cm (21 1/8 x 17 5/8 in);
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
-
The Aviator
1914; Oil on canvas, 125 x 65 cm (49 1/4 x 25 5/8 in);
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
-
Complex Presentiment: Half-Figure in a Yellow Shirt
1928-32; Oil on canvas, 99 x 79 cm (39 x 31 1/8 in);
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
-
Running Man
1932-34; Oil on canvas, 79 x 65 cm (31 1/8 x 25 5/8 in);
Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris
-
Self Portrait
1933; Oil on canvas, 73 x 66 cm (28 3/4 x 26 in);
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
© 28 Jan 1996,
Nicolas Pioch -
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