Kazimir Malevich

Russian painter?, pioneer of geometric [abstract art]?.

Trained at Kiev? School of Art and Moscow Academy of Fine Arts. After early experiments with various Modernist styles, in 1915 in Petrograd he introduced his abstract, non-objective geometric patterns in style he called suprematism; his most famous painting is White on White (1918). Malevich began teaching at the Vitebsk? Popular Art School in 1919 and he soon became its director. From 1922 to 1927, he taught at the Institute of Artistic Culture in Petrograd. He published a book The Nonobjective World (1926), on his theories. When Soviet politics turned against modern art because of his connections with German artists, he was arrested in 1930 and many of his manuscripts were destroyed. He died in poverty in Leningrad.