Near Kiev 1878-1935 Leningrad

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich received his early artistic training from the Kiev Drawing School (1895-1896), the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1904-1905), and in the studio of E. I. Rerberg in Moscow (1905-1910). In addition to being a member of the Union of Youth association from 1910 to 1914, Malevich took part in numerous exhibitions, including Jack of Diamonds (1910), Donkey Tail (1912), Target (1913), Tramway V (1915), and 0.10 (1915-1916). He founded the Establishers of the New Art (UNOVIS) in Vitebsk in 1920 while he taught at the People's Art School there from 1919 to 1922. (Before that, he briefly conducted courses at the State Free Art Studios in Moscow in 1918.) The artist later served as director and professor of the Institute of Artistic Culture in Petrograd-Leningrad from 1923 to 1927.

A prominent figure in the Russian avant-garde, Malevich first painted in an Impressionist style, then experimented with Fauvism before he became one of the founders and leading masters of Russian cubofuturism. He originated the art theory of "suprematism," one of the diverse aspects of non-objective art. During the early phases of his creative activity, Malevich produced portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes before he concentrated on non-objective "suprematist" compositions. In his later years he returned to figurative art, primarily portraiture. Malevich is also acknowledged as the author of numerous theoretical works on the problems of pictorial form, color, and artistic perception.