Kazimir Maljevič

Born in Kiev to Polish immigrants, Maljevič moved to Moscow after his father’s death to study art and architecture. He exhibited with the Soyuz Molodyozhi (The Union of Youth) and in the Donkey’s Tail with Tatlin. Influenced by Lentulov’s paintings, he adopted a Cubo-Futurist style and designed the stage set for the opera Victory over the sun. In 1914 he exhibited in the Salon des Indépendants and collaborated with Russian artistis and poets illustrating their work. In 1915 he published the manifesto from Cubism to Suprematism and participated to the Last Futurist Exhibition 0.10 in Petrograd and to the The Jack of Diamonds group. Following the Russian Revolution, he was offered positions in various institutions and academies, such as the Vitebsk school, where he met Chagall and where he founded the UNOVIS group, and the Petrograd State Institute of Artistic Culture, as a Director. In 1927 he travelled to Krakow and to Berlin and Munich, but on his return the Socialist Realism forced him to go back to figurative art, until his death in 1935.