Englishman in Moscow

Born to Polish parents near Kiev [in present-day Ukraine], Kasimir Malevich would become one of the founding and most important members of geometric art. After studying at the Moscow Academy of Fine Art, Malevich invented the ‘Suprematists’ style of painting. He would go on to teach this style in Moscow, Leningrad, and at the Vitebsk Popular Art School between 1919 and 1921, and to famous students such as Nikolai Suetin. Suprematism was a style that incorporated pure, simple geometric forms and colors. With his students, he formed a group called Unovis that supported and worked using Suprematist methods. Malevich and others often used this style as their emotional art response to the Russian Revolution. While this new style was extremely popular, and Malevich found much success as a Suprematist painter, his compositions did also cause, at times, much confusion.