346 - After KAZIMIR MALÉVICH (Kyiv, 1878 – St. Petersburg, 1935).

After KAZIMIR MALÉVICH (Kyiv, 1878 – St. Petersburg, 1935). “Supremus No. 55,” 2014. Offset print. Measurements: 87 x 86 cm; 106 x 105.5 cm (frame). This 2014 edition reproduces one of the fundamental compositions of Kazimir’s Suprematist universe, “Supremus No. 55,” held at the Krasnodar Museum of Art (No. Zh-358), originally dated 1916. The original composition was created by Kazimir Malevich in 1916, at the height of Suprematism—the movement the artist had initiated just one year earlier and through which he pushed abstraction to one of its most radical limits. For Malevich, a painting no longer had to depict a person, a landscape, or a recognizable object. It could exist on its own. A shape could be simply a shape; a color, simply a color. The historical significance of this work was later reinforced by its international circulation. The original was exhibited in 1922 in Berlin at the First Exhibition of Russian Art at the Galerie van Diemen, a pivotal exhibition for the introduction of Russian avant-garde art to Western Europe.