Malevich: Pioneer of Abstraction

Kazimir Malevich. Suprematist Composition: White on White. 1918 - oil on canvas - 31 1/4 x 31 1/4" (79.4 x 79.4 cm) - MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) New YorkKasimir Malevich, (1878-1935) was a Ukranian painter and designer, and one of the most important pioneers of geometric abstract art.

Born near Kiev, Malevich trained at Kiev School of Art and Moscow Academy of Fine Arts. In 1913 he began creating abstract geometric patterns in a style he called Suprematism. He taught painting in Moscow and Leningrad from 1919-21, and published a book, The Nonobjective World, on his theory in 1926. Malevich was the first artist to exhibit abstract geometric paintings. He strove to produce pure, cerebral compositions, and his famous painting of 1918, White on White, carries suprematist theories to their absolute conclusion. Malevich described his aesthetic theory, known as Suprematism, as "the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts." Sadley, Soviet politics turned against modern art, and Malevich died in poverty and oblivion.

Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism

Kazimir Malevich - To Harvest (Martha and Vanka) - 1928-32 - Oil on canvas - The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (click photo for larger image)Ukranian Cubist and Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) was a key figure in the Russian abstract art movement. The Supremetism he developed is characterized by simple geometric shapes and associated with ideas of spiritual purity. The term itself implied the supremacy of a new art in relation to the past. Malevich saw it as purely aesthetic and concerned only with form, free from any political or social meaning. He stressed the purity of shape, particularly of the square, and he regarded Suprematism as primarily an exploration of visual language comparable to contemporary developments in writing.