In honor of the 2014 Winter Olympics that closed in Sochi, Russia, this past Sunday evening, I want to share that February 24 marks the anniversary of the birth of Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935; http://www.kazimir-malevich.org/), a Russian painter and theoretician who pioneered geometric abstraction and was the leading exponent of Suprematism, one of the first avant-garde movements of the 20th century. The term implied the supremacy of new geometric art over past realistic styles. Suprematism was purely aesthetic and concerned with form and shape (the square was paramount, though circles can found, as well), and was a movement that disavowed political and social commentary. Rather surprising, perhaps, since much of Malevich’s work dates from the period between Russia’s revolutions of 1905 and 1917. I like it so much that I have a Malevich image on my website. Check it out on the ‘Contact’ page. And just for fun, here is another image, proving that the square in all its iterations was important to the artist.
Suprematist Composition (blue rectangle over the red beam), 1916
Sold 2010 at Sotheby’s for $60 million
