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Kazimir Malevich

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Kazimir Malevich,  (born Feb 23 [Feb. 11, old style], 1878, near Kiev—died May 15, 1935, Leningrad), Russian painter, who was the founder of the Suprematist school of abstract painting.

Malevich was trained at the Kiev School of Art and the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts. In his early work he followed Impressionism as well as Fauvism, and, after a trip to Paris in 1912, he was influenced by Picasso and Cubism. As a member of the Jack of Diamonds group, he led the Russian Cubist movement.

In 1913 Malevich created abstract geometrical patterns in a manner he called Suprematism (q.v.). From 1919 to 1921 he taught painting in Moscow and Leningrad, where he lived the rest of his life. On a 1926 visit to the Bauhaus in Weimar he met Wassily Kandinsky and published a book on his theory under the title Die gegenstandslose Welt (“The Nonobjective World”). Later, when Soviet politicians decided against modern art, Malevich and his art were doomed. He died in poverty and oblivion.

Malevich was the first to exhibit paintings composed of abstract geometrical elements. He constantly strove to produce pure, cerebral compositions, repudiating all sensuality and representation in art. His well-known “White on White” (1918; Museum of Modern Art, New York City) carries his Suprematist theories to their logical conclusion.

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