Malevich Kazimir Severinovich was born on February 11 (23), 1878 in rural areas city of Kyiv. Malevich's parents were native Poles. Kazimir’s father, Severin Antonovich Malevich, worked as the manager of a sugar factory, owned by one of the well-known entrepreneurs at that time, Tereshchenko. Kazimir’s mother, Ludviga Alexandrovna, was simply a heroic woman; she gave birth to 14 children. Unfortunately, only 9 were able to enter independent life. Kazemir Malevich was the eldest: he had 4 brothers and 4 sisters.
At the age of 15, Kazimir got his first set of paints, which his mother gave him. She was a creative woman: she knitted and embroidered.
Because of their father's work, the Malevichs had to frequently move from place to place. Kazimir therefore studied in different places, a little bit everywhere. He graduated from the agronomic school (5 classes) in the village of Parkhomovka, studied a little at the Kyiv drawing school of N.I. Murashko.
In 1896, the Malevich family moved again and settled in Kursk. There, in 1899, Malevich and his brother Mieczyslaw married the Zgleitz sisters (Kazimira and Maria). Kazimira gave birth to a son, Anatoly, to Malevich in 1901, and a daughter, Galina, in 1905.
To raise a family, money was needed, and Malevich got a job in the Administration of the Kursk-Moscow Railway. Nevertheless, he does not forget about art. Together with his friend Lev Kvachevsky and other like-minded people, Malevich organized an art group in Kursk. Greater emphasis was placed on working from life. Everything went well, but for Malevich all these processes were too standard, as in all other schools. He wanted something more. Kazimir began to think about a trip to Moscow. He began by applying to study at the Moscow School of Painting, but he was not accepted. Then in 1905 he came to Moscow and began to live in Leforto in an art commune. But the money quickly ran out and he had to return back to Kursk in 1906 and go to work again in the same positions. In the summer, Malevich tried to re-enter the Moscow School, but again failed. In 1907, the family of Kazimira and Kazimir Malevich moved to Moscow, where a third attempt was made to enter the school, but it was also unsuccessful.
During this period, Malevich already produced works, mainly in the style of impressionism and neo-impressionism. These are the works "Church", "Spring Landscape". This early works, where there are still many nuances, they are difficult to perceive. But the works “Girl Without Duty”, “Boulevard”, “Flower Girl” and “On the Boulevard” were made in a different style and were written directly from the nature of the actions taking place.
Since Malevich failed to enter the Moscow School, he went to study with Ivan Fedorovich Rerberg in 1905. In Moscow he was a fairly well-known figure in art society. In the period from 1907 to 1910, Malevich regularly exhibited his paintings at the Association's exhibitions.
While studying with Rorberg, Malevich met Ivan Vasilyevich Klyunkov, better known by his nickname Klyun. They became close friends to such an extent that Malevich moved to live with his family in the Klyunkovs’ house.
Malevich tries himself in religious painting. ("Shroud"). Also, together with Klyun, they worked on Sketches for fresco painting in 1907. By 1909, Malevich managed to get a divorce and remarry Sofya Mikhailovna Rafalovich, a children's writer. Her father’s house in Nemchinovka has since become the most expensive place for the writer.
In 1911, Malevich exhibited a lot. In addition to Moscow exhibitions, he also participated in the “Youth Union” exhibition in Peturburg. At the Moscow exhibition "Donkey's Tail" in 1912, Malevich exhibited about 20 of his works. The works amazed with their expressiveness and bright colors. Compositionally and even anatomically, the images and the paintings themselves were completely insane. But Malevich created his own laws and was not going to deviate from them. Then he had a series of works on the theme of the peasantry, executed in his own invented technique of neo-primitivism.
Malevich's works are beginning to more and more resemble futuristic painting, which was called "Cubofuturism" or later "cubism".
In 1912, his painting “The Grinder (The Flickering Principle)” was released, which became a classic example of Cubo-Futurism, Russian of course. Malevich also painted portraits in the same style (Portrait of Klyun, Portrait of Mikhail Matyushkin). Malevich in 1912 met Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin, big man in art. Subsequently, this acquaintance would develop into a great friendship, and it also influenced the work of Malevich himself.
In 1913, Malevich worked on the scenery for the futuristic opera play “Victory over the Sun.” In the same year he joined the Youth Union.
Despite active work Malevich, lack of money was the main hindering factor. Sometimes there wasn’t even enough for drawing materials.
At one point, the artist discovers new facets of painting. The painting “The Cow and the Violin” became such a precursor. Through her, Malevich simply tore apart the old principles of established art. He even wrote the following words on the back of the picture: “An illogical comparison of two forms - “a cow and a violin” - as a moment of struggle with logic, naturalness, petty-bourgeois meaning and prejudices. K. Malevich.” At the St. Petersburg exhibition of 1913, his works were divided into two themes: Cubo-Futuristic Realism and Abstruse Realism.
In 1915, another important event occurred. The futuristic exhibition "Tram B" took place in Petrograd. Malevich exhibited 16 works there.
In 1915, one of the most famous paintings Malevich "Black Square". It was something completely unusual, a black square on a white background. This idea came to Malevich when he was preparing the second edition of the brochure “Victory over the Sun” (it was not published). This drawing resulted in a whole direction, which Malevich later called “suprematism” (suprema - dominant, dominant).
On this occasion, Malevich wrote a small book, “From Cubism to Suprematism,” which was distributed at the vernissage.
On December 17, 1915, the last futuristic exhibition “0, 10” zero-ten took place at the Nadezhda Dobychina Art Bureau.
But Malevich’s friends did not support his idea of Supremativism as the heir of Futurism. They were not ready to take on a completely new direction. In addition, artists forbade Malevich to call his paintings Supremitivism, either in catalogs or at exhibitions.
But Malevich stood his ground. He called his art "New Realism". Distinctive feature Suprematism was that the background of the picture was always a white environment. The image on a white background gave a feeling of depth of space, bottomlessness. Various geometric shapes were depicted against this background, using a pure color technique.
Malevich divided Suprematism into 3 stages: black, colored and white.
Black stage: These are the shapes of square, cross and circle. The painting "Black Square" is considered basic. "Black Cross" and "Black Circle" are therefore the next elements.
Color stage: started with the "Red Square". These are more complex compositions, various combinations of intricate geometric shapes.
White step: Malevich reached it in 1918. Now he even removed color from his works.
After October Revolution Malevich holds positions in the official bodies of the People's Commissariat of Education. Most of all, he was involved in the development of museums in Russia. He also started studying pedagogical activity, taught at the Moscow Free State Workshops.
In 1919, in July, went out a lot of work Malevich "On new systems in art." By this time, he had already moved to Moscow, leaving his pregnant wife in the Moscow region - a lack of funds forced him. Marc Chagall and Lazar Lissitzky helped him with his work.
In 1927, Malevich made the first trip abroad in his life. First it was Warsaw, then Berlin. Everywhere he performs personal exhibitions. Suddenly, Malevich abruptly leaves for the USSR after receiving a letter, the contents of which are unknown. He even leaves his paintings, planning to return in a year. Apparently then he had a vague premonition that when he left, he would leave a will for the paintings. .jpg)
Arriving at his homeland, Malevich was arrested and kept in custody for several days. Friends somehow manage to rescue the artist. His paintings were also persecuted, fortunately, most survived, even after World War II under the Hitler regime.
For Malevich, the so-called stage of post-suprematism begins. The trip abroad gave him new look, new ideas, because before that he wanted to leave painting, believing that Suprematism was the end point in this direction. New works appear. Among them is the painting "Girls in the Field", painted in 1912. The inscription “Supranaturilism” was written on the stretcher of the painting. Malevich in his new term combined the early concepts of “Naturalism” and “Suprematism”. He writes again peasant theme, only in a new style. Now the images of people have become faceless: instead of faces there are simply various ovals. The paintings contain more emotions, tragedy and at the same time heroism and greatness.
After 1927, Malevich often changed jobs. Work was not going well, I had to travel a lot. He even had to go to Kyiv to teach. In Ukraine they loved the artist, they even wrote about him in newspapers, a whole series of stories.
Turned 30 in 1928 creative work Malevich. He began preparing a personal exhibition in Tretyakov Gallery. This turned out to be a large-scale and spectacular project.
In Kyiv in 1930, his personal exhibition took place, but it received harsh criticism. After this, Malevich was arrested again and sent to prison for several weeks.
In 1933 he was overtaken by incurable disease. Malevich died in 1935. He was buried, as he had bequeathed, in Nemchinovka near an oak tree. Bul has a monument in the form of a cube with a black square.
The large Polish family of the Malevichs constantly moved from place to place, traveling across half of Ukraine: Kyiv, Moevka, Parkhomovka, Belopole, Konotop. Severin Malevich worked as a manager at a sugar production plant. The eldest of nine children, Casimir, born February 23, 1879, was destined for a similar career. But technology did not at all attract the boy, who was in love with nature, bright colors And peasant life. He admired the ability of people working on the land to find time for creative activities: singing, dancing, decorating their homes.
Father often took Kazimir on business trips. During one of them, he saw in the window of a Kyiv store a picture of a girl peeling potatoes. Despite the simple plot and standard style of painting, this portrait became one of his first aesthetic shocks. Saved Kazimir from boring and routine work at the factory or railway his mother. Ludviga Alexandrovna not only took care of the house and children, but also did needlework, teaching her son a lot along the way, and wrote poetry. At the age of 15, she purchased a set of paints of 54 colors, realizing that this was exactly the gift her son, sensitive to beauty, needed. The various impressions accumulated during childhood and adolescence - moonlight in a dark room, the immensity of the horizon, a roof painted green, the ripples on a huge puddle - and the admiration for color were splashed out on paper. The first picture was the one that delighted his friends, “ moonlit night", sold in a Konotop stationery shop for 5 rubles. The first meeting with real artists took place with Malevich in Belopole. The work of icon painters from St. Petersburg so impressed the future painter that he and a friend even planned an escape to Northern capital. Years later, the study of icon painting would help him better understand the naive creativity of the peasants.
Kazimir Severinovich can rightfully be called self-taught, including in painting. In his luggage there are only a few classes of an agricultural school, a year's study at the drawing school of Nikolai Murashko in Kyiv in 1895-96. An attempt to become a student at the MUZHVZ (school of painting, sculpture and architecture) was stopped by his father, who did not send an application for admission to Moscow.
After moving to Kursk in 1896 in connection with the appointment of Malevich Sr. to work at the Railway Administration, considerable changes occurred in the life of the family. Kazimir got a job as a draftsman in the same department, not forgetting about painting. Together with several colleagues, he organized a circle that united amateur artists. In 1901, he married the daughter of the pharmacist Zgleits, his namesake, who bore him two children - Anatoly (1901) and Galina (1905). In 1902, a misfortune happened - Severin Antonovich died suddenly of a heart attack. Despite the economic crisis and his status as the main breadwinner of a large family, Malevich could not stop thinking about Moscow. It was there, in his opinion, that the dream of serious painting could be realized. In 1905 his dream came true. Leaving his family in Kursk with the promise to return for his loved ones when he settles down, Kazimir moves to Moscow. The small funds accumulated during his service in Kursk allowed him to settle in the Kurdyumov art commune. Several unsuccessful attempts to enter the Moscow School of Art and Painting and a great desire to learn drawing led him in 1906 to the private school-studio of the artist Fyodor Rerberg, one of the founders of the Association of Artists. Malevich also took part in exhibitions of this community since 1907. His acquaintance with Ivan Klyun and Mikhail Larionov dates back to this period. The works of that period reflected his passion for impressionism. Studying with Rerberg allowed him to master various methods and techniques of painting and gain systematic knowledge of its history. He regularly visited the Tretyakov Gallery and attended exhibitions contemporary artists and performances of Moscow theaters.
After the death of her husband, Ludwig Alexandrovna did not lose heart and took upon herself to provide for her family, while at the same time providing the maximum possible support to her son in his quest to become a real artist. Thanks to her efforts, his wife and children were able to move to Moscow from Kursk. But a couple of years later, the marriage collapsed, unable to withstand material difficulties and guest relations. After all, even after the family moved to Moscow, Kazimir did not immediately leave the commune, not intending to sacrifice his dream. Priority was unconditionally given to painting, in contrast to Klyun, who did not leave his service to provide for a family with three children. Malevich’s work at the beginning of the 20th century is characterized by eclecticism or mixture different styles: a departure from the realistic manner in favor of impressionism, fauvism, and modernism. The end of the first decade was very fruitful for the artist, and Fauvist motifs predominated in his work. Acquaintance with Larionov allowed him to take part in the first exhibition of the association “ Jack of Diamonds" From 1908 to 1912, his vivid works in folk style, belonging to the so-called peasant cycle, appeared in the exhibitions of the Moscow Salon, the Youth Union, the Munich Blue Horseman, and Donkey's Tail. The "Donkey's Tail" included Larionov, Goncharova, Malevich, Tatlin, Chagall, Fonvizin, who broke away from the "Jack of Diamonds" group. Subsequently, having disagreed with Larionov, Malevich, at the invitation of Matyushin, joined the Youth Union association. During this period, there was a gradual transition to the cubo-futuristic style. In 1913, he took part in the “Target” exhibition with compositions written in a similar manner. The idea for the famous “Black Square” arose in 1913 while working on the sets and costumes for the futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun” by Kruchenykh and Matyushin. The black and white backdrop, against which a chaotic action unfolded with illogical text, symbolized an eclipse, the triumph of new life and the human mind. Malevich's innovative discoveries: the effect of depth achieved by constructing scenery in a cubic-shaped structure, creating three-dimensional space with the help of light. The use of geometric figures in stage design and costumes, dividing them into component parts, anticipated the creation of its own direction in painting - Suprematism. Asymmetrical compositions of multi-colored planes in dynamic space. The results of work in a new direction were presented at the futuristic exhibition “0, 10” in 1915. The selection of 39 paintings also included “Black Square”, located in top corner rooms. Where icons are traditionally hung. In 2015, a sensational discovery was made. The picture resembles a matryoshka doll in which several images are hidden: under the quadrangle dark color there are two more compositions - cubo-futurist and proto-suprematist. The inscription “Battle of Negroes in a Dark Cave” was also found there, evoking associations with the black rectangle of Alphonse Allais.
After the revolution, Malevich was called up new government to work in the field of monument protection and cultural values, including in the Kremlin. He served as chairman art department in the Moscow City Council, after which two new museums appeared in Moscow contemporary art. He taught at the State Free Workshops, collaborated with Meyerhold on the production of “Mystery Bouffe” in Petrograd, and wrote the work “On New Systems in Art.” In 1919 his first personal exhibition took place. In the same year, Malevich moved with his second wife to Vitebsk, where he was mainly engaged in teaching art school, created by Chagall, and writing works devoted to modern art. The UNOVIS society he created in 1920 included Lisitsky, Kogan, Chashnik and other talented artists and architects. In 1922, Malevich and his students and followers returned to Petrograd. In 1925, he presented his new developments regarding the use of Suprematism in building design - architectons and planites.
The artist’s trips abroad began only in 1927. The first country was Poland, where the artist’s Suprematist paintings were treated very favorably. The exhibition in Berlin was a triumph. But instead of five months, he was only able to stay there for one. The authorities' demand for Malevich's immediate return to the USSR forced him to leave Germany. Most of He left the paintings for the preservation of the architect Hugo Hering. Many of them can be seen in the Amsterdam City Museum. At home he was arrested as an alleged German spy. The imprisonment did not last long - about a month. But we can confidently assume that the trigger for the terrible illness from which he later died was the stress experienced during his first arrest.
While Malevich’s fame was growing abroad (new exhibitions in Berlin and Vienna), clouds were gathering around him in his native country. For about a year he regularly came to Kyiv to give lectures at the art institute. The exhibition organized there in the spring of 1930 caused a negative reaction in the authorities. A new arrest followed, and only the intervention of high-ranking official Kirill Shutko, his friend, allowed him to soon be released. Created by 1932, a new folklore cycle, “post-suprematist” canvases, with flat torsos is evidence of internal breakdown and growing anxiety. The painting with the eloquent title “Complicated Premonition” with a dramatic color scheme, the absence of a face on the character, deprived of the ability to see and speak, anticipates the events of the near future. In the works of the late period there is an unexpected return to a realistic manner. This is exactly how the portraits of his daughter Una, born in his second marriage, of Klyun, Punin, the artist’s third wife, and ordinary workers were painted.
In 1933, Kazimir Severinovich was diagnosed with cancer, from which he died on May 15, 1935. Malevich bequeathed to bury him in a cross-shaped Suprematist coffin with his arms outstretched to the sides. After the cremation procedure, the ashes were transported to Nemchinovka, a village near Moscow, where the artist loved to relax. On the cubic monument erected over the grave, a black square was depicted. Several decades later, the burial site, lost during World War II, was discovered by pathfinders.
Elena Tanakova
Malevich's works represent some of the most striking manifestations of abstract art of modern times. The founder of Suprematism, the Russian and Soviet artist entered the history of world art with the painting “Black Square,” but his work was by no means limited to this work. With the most famous works Any cultured person should be familiar with the artist.
Theorist and practitioner of contemporary art
Malevich's works clearly reflect the state of affairs in society at the beginning of the 20th century. The artist himself was born in Kyiv in 1879.
According to his own stories in his autobiography, public exhibitions of the artist began in Kursk in 1898, although no documentary evidence of this was found.
In 1905, he tried to enter the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. However, he was not accepted. At that time, Malevich still had a family in Kursk - his wife Kazimira Zgleits and children. There was a split in their personal life, so even without enrolling, Malevich did not want to return to Kursk. The artist settled in Lefortovo in an art commune. About 300 masters of painting lived in the huge house of the artist Kurdyumov. Malevich lived in the commune for six months, but despite the extremely low rent for housing, after six months the money ran out and he still had to return to Kursk.
Malevich finally moved to Moscow only in 1907. Attended classes by the artist Fyodor Rerberg. In 1910 he began to take part in exhibitions creative association early avant-garde Pictures began to appear that brought him world fame and recognition.
"Suprematist composition"
In 1916, Malevich's works were already quite well known in the capital. At that time She appears, painted in oil on canvas. In 2008, it was sold at Sotheby's for $60 million.
The artist’s heirs put it up for auction. In 1927 it was exhibited at an exhibition in Berlin.
At the opening of the gallery, it was represented by Malevich himself, but he soon had to return because Soviet authorities His foreign visa was not extended. He had to leave all his work. There were about 70 of them. The German architect Hugo Hering was appointed responsible. Malevich expected to return for the paintings in the very near future, but he was never allowed to go abroad again.
Just before his death, Hering donated all of Malevich's works, which he had kept for many years, to the Amsterdam City Museum (also known as the Steleijk Museum). Hering entered into an agreement according to which the museum had to pay him a certain amount every year for 12 years. Ultimately, immediately after the death of the architect, his relatives, who formalized the inheritance, received the entire amount at once. Thus, the “Suprematist Composition” ended up in the collections of the Amsterdam City Museum.
Malevich's heirs have been trying to return these paintings since the 70s of the 20th century. But they were not successful.
Only in 2002, 14 works from the Amsterdam museum were presented at the exhibition "Kazimir Malevich. Suprematism". It took place in the USA. Malevich's heirs, some of whom are American citizens, have filed a lawsuit against the Dutch museum. The gallery management agreed to a pre-trial agreement. According to its results, 5 of the artist’s 36 paintings were returned to his descendants. In return, the heirs waived further claims.
This painting remains the most expensive painting by a Russian artist ever sold at auction.
"Black Square"
One of his most discussed works. It is part of the artist’s series of works dedicated to Suprematism. In it he explored the basic possibilities of composition and light. In addition to the square, this triptych contains the paintings “Black Cross” and “Black Circle”.
Malevich painted the painting in 1915. The work was done for the final Futurist exhibition. Malevich's works at the exhibition "0.10" in 1915 were hung in what is called the "red corner". In the place where the icon traditionally hung in Russian huts, the “Black Square” was located. The most mysterious and most terrible picture in the history of Russian painting.
Three key Suprematist forms - square, cross and circle, in art theory were considered standards that stimulate further complication of the entire Suprematist system. It is from them that new Suprematist forms are subsequently born.
Many researchers of the artist’s work have repeatedly tried to find the original version of the painting, which would have been located under the top layer of paint. So, in 2015, fluoroscopy was performed. As a result, it was possible to isolate two more color images that were located on the same canvas. Initially, a cubo-futurist composition was drawn, and above it there was also a proto-Suprematist one. Only then everything was filled with a black square.
Scientists also managed to decipher the inscription that the artist left on the canvas. These are the words "Battle of the Negroes in dark cave", which refer art connoisseurs to the famous monochrome work by Alphonse Allais, which he created in 1882.
It is no coincidence that the name of the exhibition, which featured Malevich’s works, was also given. Photos from the opening day can still be found in old archives and magazines of that time. The presence of the number 10 indicated the number of participants expected by the organizers. But the zero indicated that the “Black Square” would be exhibited, which, according to the author’s plan, was going to reduce everything to zero.
Three squares
In addition to the “Black Square”, there were several more of these geometric figures in Malevich’s work. And the “Black Square” itself was at first a simple triangle. It did not have strict right angles. Therefore, from the point of view of purely geometry, it was a quadrangle and not a square. Art historians note that the whole point is not the author’s negligence, but a principled position. Malevich sought to create perfect shape, which would be quite dynamic and mobile.
There are also two more works by Malevich - squares. These are "Red Square" and "White Square". The painting "Red Square" was shown at the avant-garde exhibition "0.10". The white square appeared in 1918. At that time, Malevich’s works, photos of which can be found in any art textbook today, were going through the stage of the “white” period of Suprematism.
"Mystical Suprematism"
From 1920 to 1922, Malevich worked on the painting “Mystical Suprematism.” It is also known as "Black Cross on a Red Oval". The canvas is painted in oil on canvas. It was also sold at Sotheby's for almost $37,000.
By and large, this painting repeats the fate of “Suprematist Construction”, which has already been told. It also ended up in the collections of the Amsterdam Museum, and only after Malevich’s heirs went to court did they manage to regain at least some of the paintings.
"Suprematism. 18 design"
Malevich's works, photos with titles of which can be found in any textbook on the history of art, fascinate and attract close attention.
Another interesting painting is the painting “Suprematism. 18 design”, painted in 1915. It was sold at Sotheby's in 2015 for almost $34 million. It also ended up in the hands of the artist's heirs after a lawsuit with the Amsterdam City Museum.
Another painting that the Dutch parted with was “Suprematism: the painterly realism of a football player. Colorful masses in the fourth dimension.” She found her owner in 2011. It was purchased by the Art Institute of Chicago for an amount that it did not want to disclose to the public. But the work of 1913 - “Desk and Room” could be seen at a major exhibition of Malevich at the Tate Gallery in Madrid. Moreover, the painting was exhibited anonymously. What the organizers had in mind is unclear. Indeed, in cases where the true owner of the painting wishes to remain incognito, it is announced that the painting is in a private collection. Here a fundamentally different formulation is used.
"Suprematist composition"
Malevich's works, the description of which you will find in this article, will give you a fairly complete and clear idea of his work. For example, the painting “Suprematist Composition” was created in 1919-1920. In 2000, it was sold at a Phillips auction for $17 million.
This painting, unlike the previous ones, after Malevich left Berlin for Soviet Union, remained in Germany. In 1935, she was taken to the United States by the director of the New York Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr. For 20 years it was exhibited in the USA as part of the exhibition “Cubism and The fact is that the painting had to be urgently taken out - by that time the Nazis had come to power in Germany, Malevich’s work fell out of favor. in his basement, and then secretly handed it over to Barr, who took the priceless work to the United States.
In 1999, the New York Museum returned this painting and several of his graphic works to Malevich’s heirs.
Self-portrait of the artist
In 1910, Malevich painted his self-portrait. This is one of three self-portraits of his painted during this period. It is well known that the other two are kept in domestic museums. These works by Malevich can be seen in the Tretyakov Gallery.
The third self-portrait was sold at auction. Initially he was in private collection George Costakis. In 2004, at a Christie's auction in London, a self-portrait found its owner for only 162 thousand pounds sterling. In total, because over the next 35 years its value has increased approximately 35 times. Already in 2015, the canvas was sold at Sotheby's auction for almost $9 million. Indeed, a profitable investment.
"Peasant's Head"
If we analyze Malevich’s works over the years, we can establish a certain trend with the help of which we can trace how his work developed.
A good example of this is the painting “Head of a Peasant,” painted in 1911. In 2014, at a Sotheby's auction in London, it went under the hammer for $3.5 million.
The public first saw this painting by Malevich in 1912 at the exhibition “Donkey’s Tail,” which was organized by Natalya Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov. After this, she participated in the Berlin exhibition in 1927. Then Malevich himself gave it to Hugo Hering. From him it was inherited by his wife and daughter. Heering's heirs sold the painting only in 1975, after his death.
In the Russian Museum
Malevich's works are widely represented in the Russian Museum. Here is perhaps the richest collection of his works. The work of this reformer and teacher is treated with reverence; his paintings are given the most honorable places.
In total, the collections of the Russian Museum today contain about 100 paintings, plus at least 40 graphic ones. Many of them have new dates. More accurate. The uniqueness of the collection presented in the Russian Museum lies in the fact that there are not only a lot of works, they also cover the widest possible range of his work. Presented as early works, practically the first experiments in painting, as well as later realistic portraits, in which the brush of the artist who painted “Black Square” is completely unrecognizable.
Death of an Artist
Kazimir Malevich died in Leningrad in 1935. According to his will, the body was placed in a Suprematist coffin, which was a cross with outstretched arms, and cremated.
Born into a family of immigrants from Poland, he was the eldest among nine children. In 1889-94. the family often moved from place to place; in the village of Parkhomovka near Belopolye, Malevich graduated from a five-year agronomic school. In 1895-96. studied for a short time at the Kyiv drawing school of N. I. Murashko. From 1896, after moving to Kursk, he served as a draftsman in the technical department of the railway. In the fall of 1905 he came to Moscow, attended classes at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the Stroganov School for educational purposes; lived and worked in the house-commune of the artist V.V. Kurdyumov in Lefortovo. Attended classes in the private studio of F. I. Rerberg (1905-10). Spending the summer in Kursk, Malevich worked in the open air, developing as a neo-impressionist.
Unemployed
Woman
Malevich participated in exhibitions initiated by M. F. Larionov: “Jack of Diamonds” (1910-11), “Donkey’s Tail” (1912) and “Target” (1913). In the spring of 1911 he became close to the St. Petersburg society “Youth Union”, of which he became a member in January 1913 (left in February 1914); in 1911-14 he exhibited his works at association exhibitions and participated in debate evenings.
Apple tree in bloom
Reaper on a red background
Decorative and expressionistic paintings by Malevich from the turn of the 1900s to the 1910s. testified to the assimilation of the heritage of Gauguin and the Fauves, transformed taking into account the pictorial tendencies of Russian “Cézanneism”. At the exhibitions, the artist also presented his own version of Russian neo-primitivism - paintings on themes of peasant life (canvases of the so-called first peasant cycle) and a number of works with subjects from “provincial life” (“Bather”, “On the Boulevard”, “Gardener”, all 1911, Stedelijk Museum, etc.).
Two women in the garden
Woman in a yellow hat
Since 1912, a creative collaboration began with the poets A. E. Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Malevich designed a number of publications by Russian futurists (A. Kruchenykh. Blown up. Drawing by K. Malevich and O. Rozanova. St. Petersburg, 1913; V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh , E. Guro. St. Petersburg, 1913; A. Khlebnikov. 2nd ed. by K. Malevich and O. St. Petersburg. Roar! Gloves. Fig. K. Malevich, St. Petersburg, 1914;
In the hayfield
Man
His painting of these years demonstrated the domestic version of futurism, called “cubo-futurism”: a cubist change in form, designed to affirm the intrinsic value and independence of painting, was combined with the principle of dynamism cultivated by futurism [“The Grinder (The Principle of Flickering)”, 1912, etc.]. Work over the scenery and costumes for the production at the end of 1913 of the futuristic opera “Victory over the Sun” (text by A. Kruchenykh, music by M. Matyushin, prologue by V. Khlebnikov) was subsequently interpreted by Malevich as the emergence of Suprematism.
Female worker
First Division Soldier
In painting at this time, the artist developed themes and plots of “abstruse realism”, which used alogism and irrationality of images as a tool for destroying ossified traditional art; illogical painting, expressing an abstruse, transrational reality, was built on a shocking montage of heterogeneous plastic and figurative elements that formed a composition filled with a certain meaning that shames the ordinary mind with its incomprehensibility (“Lady at a Tram Stop”, 1913; “Aviator”, “Composition with Mona Lisa”, both 1914; “An Englishman in Moscow”, 1914, etc.).
Composition with Gioconda (Partial eclipse in Moscow)
Swimmers
After the outbreak of World War I, he executed a number of propaganda patriotic popular prints with texts by V.V. Mayakovsky for the publishing house “Modern Lubok”. In the spring of 1915, the first canvases of the abstract geometric style appeared, which soon received the name “Suprematism”. Invented direction - regular geometric shapes, painted in pure local colors and immersed in a kind of “white abyss” where the laws of dynamics and statics prevailed, Malevich gave the name “Suprematism”. The term he coined went back to the Latin root “suprem”, which formed in native language artist, Polish, the word “suprematia”, which translated meant “superiority”, “supremacy”, “dominance”. At the first stage of the existence of the new artistic system With this word, Malevich sought to fix the primacy, the dominance of color over all other components of painting.
Portrait of the artist's daughter
Runner
At the exhibition “O.10” at the end of 1915, for the first time, he showed 39 canvases under the general title “Suprematism of Painting,” including his most famous work, “Black Square (Black Square on a White Background)”; At the same exhibition, the brochure “From Cubism to Suprematism” was distributed. In the summer of 1916 Malevich was called up to military service; demobilized in 1917.
Two male figures
Carpenter
In May 1917, he was elected to the council of the professional Union of Artists and Painters in Moscow as a representative from the left federation (young faction). In August he became chairman of the Art Section of the Moscow Council of Soldiers' Deputies, where he conducted extensive cultural and educational work. In October 1917 he was elected chairman of the Jack of Diamonds society. In November 1917, the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee appointed Malevich Commissioner for the Protection of Ancient Monuments and a member of the Commission for the Protection artistic values, whose responsibility was to protect the Kremlin’s valuables.
Harvest
Peasant woman
In March-June 1918 he actively collaborated in the Moscow newspaper Anarchy, publishing about two dozen articles. Participated in the work on the decorative decoration of Moscow for the May 1st holiday. In June he was elected a member of the Moscow Art Collegium of the Art Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, where he joined the museum commission together with V. E. Tatlin and B. D. Korolev.
Pilot
Cow and violin
As a result of differences with members of the Moscow board, he moved to Petrograd in the summer of 1918. In the Petrograd Free Workshops, Malevich was entrusted with one of the workshops. He designed the Petrograd production of V. V. Mayakovsky’s “Mystery-Bouffe” directed by V. E. Meyerhold (1918). In 1918, canvases of “white suprematism” were created, the last stage of Suprematist painting.
At the dacha
Portrait of Ivan Klyun
In December 1918 he returned to Moscow. He took over the leadership of the painting workshops in the Moscow I and II State Art Museums (in the first, together with N. A. Udaltsova).
In July 1919, he completed his first major theoretical work, “On New Systems in Art,” in Nemchinovka. At the beginning of November 1919, he moved to Vitebsk, where he received the position of head of a workshop at the Vitebsk People’s Art School, headed by Marc Chagall.
Non-stop station. Kuntsevo
Portrait of Una
At the end of the same year, Malevich's first solo exhibition took place in Moscow; representing the artist's concept, it unfolded from early impressionistic works through neo-primitivism, cubo-futurism and alogical canvases to Suprematism, divided into three periods: black, colored, white; The exhibition ended with stretchers with blank canvases, a clear manifestation of the rejection of painting as such. The Vitebsk period (1919-22) was devoted to the composition of theoretical and philosophical texts; Almost everything was written in those years philosophical works Malevich, including several versions of the fundamental work “Suprematism. The world is like non-objectivity.”
Three women
Gardener
As part of the activities of the association “Approvers of the New Art” (Unovis) he created, Malevich tested many new ideas in the artistic, pedagogical, utilitarian and practical spheres of Suprematism.
Bathers
Lumberjack
At the end of May 1922 he moved from Vitebsk to Petrograd. From the fall of 1922 he taught drawing at the architectural department of the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineers. He created several samples and designed Suprematist paintings for porcelain products (1923). He executed the first drawings of “planites”, which became the design stage in the emergence of spatial-volumetric Suprematism.
Suprematism
Samovar
In the 1920s headed State Institute artistic culture(Ginkhuk). He also headed the formal theoretical department in Ginkhuk, which was later renamed the department of pictorial culture. As part of the experimental work of the institute, he conducted analytical research and developed own theory surplus element in painting, and also began the production of volumetric Suprematist structures, “architectons”, which, according to the author, served as models of new architecture, the “Suprematist order”, which was to form the basis of a new, comprehensive universal style.
Head
Portrait of the artist's wife
After the defeat of Ginkhuk in 1926, Malevich and his staff were transferred to the State Institute of Art History, where he headed the committee for the experimental study of artistic culture.
Peasant
Red figure
In 1927 he went on a business trip abroad to Warsaw (8-29 March) and Berlin (29 March - 5 June). An exhibition was held in Warsaw, at which he gave a lecture. In Berlin, Malevich was given a hall at the annual Great Berlin Art Exhibition (May 7 - September 30). On April 7, 1927, he visited the Bauhaus in Dessau, where he met V. Gropius and Laszlo Moholy-Nady; in the same year, Malevich’s book “The World as Non-Objectivity” was published as part of the Bauhaus publications.
On the boulevard
Spring
Having received a sudden order to return to the USSR, he urgently left for his homeland; He left all the paintings and the archive in Berlin in the care of friends, as he intended to make a large exhibition tour with a stop in Paris in the future. Upon arrival in the USSR, he was arrested and spent three weeks in prison.
High society in top hats
Portrait of a family member
In 1928, the publication of a series of articles by Malevich began in the Kharkov magazine “New Generation”. From this year, preparing a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery (1929), the artist returned to the themes and subjects of his works of the early peasant cycle, dating the newly painted paintings to 1908-10; Post-Suprematist paintings made up the second peasant cycle.
With stroller
Scenery
At the end of the 1920s. A number of neo-impressionist works were also created, the dating of which was shifted by the author to the 1900s. Another series of post-Suprematist paintings consisted of canvases where the generalized abstract forms of male and female heads, torsos and figures were used to construct an ideal plastic image.
Reaper
Athletes
In 1929 he taught at the Kiev Art Institute, coming there every month. The personal exhibition in Kyiv, which ran in February-May 1930, was harshly criticized - in the fall of the same year, the artist was arrested and imprisoned for several weeks in the Leningrad OGPU prison.
Yellow chaos
Suprematism
In 1931 he created sketches of the paintings of the Red Theater in Leningrad, the interior of which was decorated according to his design. In 1932-33 headed the experimental laboratory at the Russian Museum. Malevich's work in the last period of his life gravitated towards the realistic school of Russian painting. In 1933, a serious illness arose that led to the artist’s death. According to his will, he was buried in Nemchinovka, a holiday village near Moscow. Painter, graphic artist, teacher, art theorist. In 1895-1896 he studied at the Kyiv Drawing School, in the mid-1900s he attended classes at the Moscow School of Sculpture and Architecture and the Stroganov School, and studied in a private studio in Moscow.
Landscape with white houses
Red Cavalry
He participated in many exhibitions initiated by Mikhail Larionov, as well as in the events of the St. Petersburg society "Youth Union" (1911-1914).
In 1915, at an exhibition in Petrograd, he showed thirty-nine paintings under the general title “Suprematism of Painting,” including his most famous work, “Black Square.” Suprematist non-objectivity was considered as new level artistic consciousness.
Flower girl
Veseny landscape
From the end of 1919 to the spring of 1922 he lived and worked in Vitebsk. After moving to Petrograd (1923), he headed the Museum of Artistic Culture, subsequently the State Institute of Artistic Culture (Ginkhuk, closed in 1926), where Nikolai Suetin, Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, Anna Leporskaya studied and worked under his leadership.
Black square and red square
Black cross
After a trip to Poland and Germany (1927) he returned to figurative painting. In 1928-32 created more than a hundred paintings and many drawings included in the “second peasant cycle.” He showed most of them at a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery in 1929.
Black square
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (Polish: Kazimierz Malewicz; February 11, 1879, Kyiv - May 15, 1935, Leningrad) - Russian and Soviet avant-garde artist of Polish origin, teacher, art theorist, philosopher. The founder of Suprematism - one of the earliest manifestations of abstract art of modern times.
In accordance with the entry in the metric book of the Kyiv Church of St. Alexandra, Kazimir Malevich was born on February 11 (23), and baptized on March 1, 1879 in the city of Kyiv. Previously it was believed that the year of his birth was 1878.
His father, Severin Antonovich Malevich (1845-1902) (a nobleman of the Volyn province of Zhitomir district), originally from the town of Turbova, Podolsk province, served as a manager at the sugar factories of the famous industrialist Nikolai Tereshchenko. Mother, Ludviga Alexandrovna (1858-1942), nee Galinovskaya, was a housewife. They got married in Kyiv on February 26 (March 10), 1878.
Parents are Polish by origin. Casimir became their first-born. The family had four more sons (Anton, Boleslav, Bronislav, Mieczyslaw) and four daughters (Maria, Wanda, Severina, Victoria). In total, the Malevich couple had fourteen children, but only nine of them lived to adulthood.
The Malevich family was Polish, at home the family spoke Polish, and around them they spoke Ukrainian; Subsequently, Malevich wrote a number of articles about art in Ukrainian. Malevich's contemporaries considered him a Pole, and Kazimir Malevich himself considered himself a Pole, but in the 1920s, during the so-called period. indigenization, Malevich wrote about himself as “Ukrainian” in some questionnaires and even tried to persuade his relatives to do so. In “Chapters from the Artist’s Autobiography,” written shortly before his death, he recalled himself and his best friend from the Kursk period, Lev Kvachevsky: “We were both Ukrainians.” Some sources also look for the Belarusian roots of the artist’s father.
Kazimir spent his childhood in a Ukrainian village. Up to 12 years in Moevka, Yampol district, Podolsk province, then in Parkhomovka, Volchka, Belopole; Then, until he was 17 years old, he mainly remained in Konotop. In 1895-1896 he attended the Kyiv drawing school of N. I. Murashko, studying with N. K. Pimonenko.
In 1894-1895, Malevich lived in Konotop. According to the artist’s own memoirs (initiated in 1933 by Nikolai Khardzhiev), he painted his first oil painting at the age of 16 (most likely in 1894). The painting, entitled “Moonlit Night,” was three-quarters arshin in size and depicted a river with a boat on the shore and the Moon reflecting its rays. Malevich's friends liked the work. One of the friends (apparently from Konotop) offered to sell the painting and, without asking the artist, took it to the store, where it was quickly bought for 5 rubles. The location of the painting remains unknown.
In 1896, the Malevich family moved to Kursk. Here Kazimir worked as a draftsman in the Office of the Moscow-Kursk Railway, while simultaneously practicing painting. Together with his comrades in spirit, Malevich managed to organize an art circle in Kursk. Malevich was forced to lead a kind of double life - on the one hand, the daily worries of a provincial, an unloved and dreary service as a draftsman on the railway, and on the other, a thirst for creativity.
Malevich himself called 1898 in his “Autobiography” “the beginning of public exhibitions” (although no documentary information about this was found).
In 1899 he married Kazimiera Ivanovna Zglejc (Polish: Kazimiera Zglejc) (1881-1942). The wedding took place on January 27, 1902 in Kursk in the Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Virgin.
In Kursk, the Malevich family rented a house (five rooms) for 260 rubles a year, at the address: st. Pochtovaya, 13, owned by Anna Klein. The building has survived to this day.
In 1904, he decided to radically change his life and move to Moscow, even though his wife was against it, since Malevich left her with the children in Kursk. This marked a rift in his family life.
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