Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) was a revolutionary Russian avant-garde painter and theorist who founded the Suprematist movement and was one of the earliest proponents of pure abstraction. Malevich rejected representational art in favour of pure form and colour. His iconic work Black Square (1915) became a radical symbol of non-objectivity, defining a new visual language in contemporary art.
Read MoreMalevich was born to a Polish family on 23 February 1879 in Kyiv, Ukraine. He experienced rural life during childhood, living in various villages as his father worked in sugar refineries. Malevich began formal training in art at the Kyiv Drawing School before moving to Moscow, where he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Early influences on his work included Impressionism and Symbolism. However, he later absorbed elements of Cubism and Futurism from the European avant-garde working in Paris, which shaped his transition into abstraction.
Malevich's mature works are characterised by hard-edged, planar forms, often rendered in bold, flat colours. He aimed to convey a pure artistic experience unburdened by external narrative or object representation. Malevich coined the term 'Suprematism' to describe this philosophy, which he introduced in works exhibited at the landmark 1915 0.10 exhibition in Petrograd (now St Petersburg).
Black Square is one of modern art history's most influential and commonly referenced artworks. It is one of the first instances of pure abstraction in the Western art canon and became an emblem of Malevich's new Suprematist art movement. The minimalist composition—a simple black square set against a white background—was a radical break from traditional art and figuration. Malevich considered this a 'zero point' of painting, representing a new beginning for abstract art focused on form and space and feeling rather than representation.
When exhibited at the infamous 0.10 exhibition, Black Square was installed high above all other works, bridging the corner of the room—a sacred placement usually reserved for an icon of a Russian Orthodox saint. This installation reinforced its spiritual and enigmatic nature.
Malevich expanded on Suprematist ideas with paintings such as White on White (1918), in which he explored the limits of perception and form using subtle tonal contrasts. His Suprematist Composition (1916), a dynamic arrangement of coloured geometric shapes, demonstrated his interest in kineticism and virtual space.
'In the year 1913, trying desperately to free art from the dead weight of the real world, I took refuge in the form of the square.'—Malevich, The Non-Objective World (1927).
In addition to his paintings, Malevich was a prolific theorist. His writings, including 'From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism' (1915) and The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism (1926), articulated his vision of a spiritual, virtual, non-objective art form. He argued that Suprematism represented the highest stage of artistic evolution, freeing art from material concerns.
Following the Russian Revolution, Malevich initially aligned his art with the ideals of the new Soviet regime, but his abstract style fell out of favour as Socialist Realism became the dominant aesthetic. By the 1930s, Malevich faced censorship and restrictions, and returned to representation under pressure from authorities. Much of his work disappeared from public view after his death in 1935, though his earlier innovations continued to shape the development of modern art and abstraction internationally. Despite this, many of his works were not exhibited again until the 1980s.
Malevich's works have been featured in numerous exhibitions during his lifetime and posthumously.
Major retrospectives include:
Hazel Ellis | Ocula | 2025
