Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist, whose pioneering work and writing had a profound influence on the development of abstract art in the 20th century. Born in Kiev to an ethnic Polish family, his concept of Suprematism sought to develop a form of expression that moved as far as possible from the world of natural forms (objectivity) and subject matter in order to access "the supremacy of pure feeling" and spirituality. Malevich is also considered to be part of the Ukrainian avant-garde that was shaped by Ukrainian-born artists who worked first in Ukraine and later over a geographical span between Europe and America.
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, which he began in 1919. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Soviet avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became an important artist in the Constructivist movement.
Suprematism is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry, painted in a limited range of colors. The term suprematism refers to an abstract art based upon "the supremacy of pure artistic feeling" rather than on visual depiction of objects.
Aleksandr Vasil'evich Kuprin was a Russian painter, a founding member of the Knave of Diamonds group. Kuprin was born in Borisoglebsk in 1880 and died in Moscow in 1960. His most famous works are various landscape and still lifes.
Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner, was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century sculpture. His work combined geometric abstraction with a dynamic organization of form in small reliefs and constructions, monumental public sculpture and pioneering kinetic works that assimilated new materials such as nylon, wire, lucite and semi-transparent materials, glass and metal. Responding to the scientific and political revolutions of his age, Gabo led an eventful and peripatetic life, moving to Berlin, Paris, Oslo, Moscow, London, and finally the United States, and within the circles of the major avant-garde movements of the day, including Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, de Stijl and the Abstraction-Création group. Two preoccupations, unique to Gabo, were his interest in representing negative space—"released from any closed volume" or mass—and time. He famously explored the former idea in his Linear Construction works (1942-1971)—used nylon filament to create voids or interior spaces as "concrete" as the elements of solid mass—and the latter in his pioneering work, Kinetic Sculpture (1920), often considered the first kinetic work of art.
Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster, also known as Alexandra Exter, was a Russian and French painter and designer.
Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter and designer.
Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova was a Russian artist. With her husband Alexander Rodchenko, she was associated with the Constructivist branch of the Russian avant-garde, which rejected aesthetic values in favour of revolutionary ones. Her activities extended into propaganda, poetry, stage scenery and textile designs.
The Russian avant-garde was a large, influential wave of avant-garde modern art that flourished in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, approximately from 1890 to 1930—although some have placed its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that flourished at the time; including Suprematism, Constructivism, Russian Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Zaum and Neo-primitivism. Many of the artists who were born, grew up or were active in what is now Belarus and Ukraine, are also classified in the Ukrainian avant-garde.
Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Constructivists were in favour of art for propaganda and social purposes, and were associated with Soviet socialism, the Bolsheviks and the Russian avant-garde.
Vkhutemas was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas.
The term of faktura emerged in Russian art criticism before the First World War. David Burliuk used the term as a Russian equivalent of the French word "facture" which refers to the texture of the painted surface. Voldemārs Matvejs used the term in his 1914 text "Printsipy tvorchestva v plasticheskikh iskussvakh: Faktura.
Gustav Klutsis was a pioneering Latvian photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century. He is known for the Soviet revolutionary and Stalinist propaganda he produced with his wife Valentina Kulagina and for the development of photomontage techniques.
Vladimir Stenberg and Georgii Stenberg were Russian avant-garde Soviet artists and designers, best known for designing film posters for Sergei Eisenstein's movies, Dziga Vertov's documentaries and numerous imported films. The pair worked in a constructivist and, later, productivist styles, in a range of media, initially sculpture, subsequently theater design, architecture, and drafting. Their design work spanned clothing, shoes, and rail carriages, but they are most notable for their frequent use of film stills and their innovative approach to composition, which replaced traditional styles with non-narrative collage or assemblage. "Ours are eye-catching posters," Vladimir explained, "designed to shock. We deal with the material in a free manner. .. disregarding actual proportions. .. turning figures upside-down; in short, we employ everything that can make a busy passerby stop in their tracks. The inventive results included a distortion of perspective, elements from Dada photomontage, creative cropping, an exaggerated scale, a sense of movement, and a dynamic use of color and typography, all of which "created a revolutionary new art form: the film poster."
Constructivist architecture was a constructivist style of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Abstract and austere, the movement aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space, while rejecting decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Designs combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced many pioneering projects and finished buildings, before falling out of favour around 1932. It has left marked effects on later developments in architecture.
The Knifegrinder or Principle of Glittering, also called The Knifegrinder and sometimes shortened to simply The Knifegrinder, is a 1912-13 cubo-futurist painting by the artist Kazimir Malevich, hence the fragmentation of form associated with futurism as well as the abstract geometry related to cubism. As of 2014, it is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.
Lazar Markovich Khidekel was an artist, designer, architect and theoretician, who is noted for realizing the abstract, avant-garde Suprematist movement through architecture.
Karl Johansson was a Latvian-Soviet avant-garde artist.
The scutum from Dura-Europos is the only surviving semi-cylindrical shield (scutum) from Roman times. It is now in the Yale University Art Gallery. The shield was found in the excavation campaign of 1928/37 on Tower 19 of Dura-Europos. The city was besieged by the Sassanids in 256, eventually captured and destroyed. The dry climate enables very good conservation conditions for organic materials such as wood. Since the city housed a Roman garrison and was lost during a siege, a particularly large number of weapons were found during the excavations.
The Mithraeum of Dura Europos was found during excavations in the city in 1934. It is considered to be one of the best-preserved and best-documented cult buildings of Mithraism.
