Self-portrait, 1933 (detail)

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (Казимир Северинович Малевич, Polish Malewicz, Ukrainian transliteration Malevych, German Kasimir Malewitsch), (February 23, 1878 – May 15, 1935) was a painter and art theoretician, pioneer of geometric abstract art and one of the most important members of the so-called Russian avantgarde.

Malevich was born in Kiev, Ukraine, under the Russian Empire. He studied at the Kiev School of Art (1895–1896), the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1904–1910) and in the studio of Fedor Rerberg in Moscow (1904–1910).

After early experiments with various modernist styles including Cubism and Futurism, in 1915, in Petrograd, he introduced his abstract, non-objective geometric patterns in a style and artistic movement he called Suprematism; famous examples include Black Square (1915) and White on White (1918).

Malevich was a member of the Collegium on the Arts of Narkompros, the commission for the protection of monuments and the museums commission (all from 1918–1919); later on, he taught at the Vitebsk Practical Art School in Russia (now part of Belarus) (1919–1922), the Leningrad Academy of Arts (1922–1927), the Kiev State Art Institute (1927–1929) and the House of the Arts in Leningrad (1930). He wrote the book The World as Non-Objectivity (Munich 1926; English trans. 1976) on his theories.

When the Stalinist regime turned against modernist "bourgeois" art, Malevich was persecuted. Many of his works were confiscated or destroyed, and he died in poverty and oblivion in Leningrad, Soviet Union (today Saint Petersburg, Russia).

See also

• Alexander Brener
• El Lissitzky
• UNOVIS

External links

• "Black Square"
• "White on White"

Selected Works

• 1912 Morning in the Country after Snowstorm
• 1912 The Woodcutter
• 1912-13 Reaper on Red Background
• [1913] 1923-29 Black Circle
• [1913] 1923-29 Black Square
• 1914 The Aviator
• 1914 An Englishman in Moscow
• 1914 Soldier of the First Division
• 1915 Black Square and Red Square
• 1915 Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions
• 1915 Suprematist Composition
• 1915 Suprematism (1915)
• 1915 Suprematist Painting: Aeroplane Flying
• 1915 Suprematism: Self-Portrait in Two Dimensions
• 1915-16 Suprematist Painting (Ludwigshafen)
• 1916 Suprematist Painting (1916)
• 1916 Supremus No. 56
• 1916 Suprematism (Supremus No. 58)
• 1916-17 Suprematism (1916-17)
• 1917 Suprematist Painting (1917)
• 1928-32 Complex Presentiment: Half-Figure in a Yellow Shirt
• 1932-34 Running Man
• 1933 Self Portrait