An exhibition of avant-garde Russian paintings is held in Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) in March 1915 at the initiative of the very young Ivan Puni. Its aim is to promote a synthesis between cubism and futurism. The title Tramway V is an allusion to the progress of mechanical locomotion that symbolizes the new century for the Futurists.
Malevich participates in Tramway V but is already somehow a rebel. He introduces his own works with a comment which is indeed a profession of faith for an abstract art : "the author ignores the contents of these paintings".
The scandal of Tramway V meets the expectations of its organizers and another exhibition will be managed before the end of the year. Malevich understands that his time has come : he will be the apostle of the subject-less art.
He begins by isolating the basic figures, invariably on a white background, and reaches in May the ultimate expression of this new artistic grammar, the black square. Aware of the promising importance of this invention, he returns to build complex compositions expressing the forces of the universe by the opposition of colors circumscribed in strictly geometrical forms. To avoid any figurative interpretation he goes so far as to banish the horizontal line which evokes the horizon.
In the December exhibition hermetically titled Zero-Ten, Malevich enters 39 paintings offering various degrees of reconstruction but physically dominated in their hanging by the Black Square. The loss of meaning allows the artist to change the position of the paintings. He is a precursor of the modern installation.
On May 16 in New York, Sotheby's sells a Composition of three forms, lot 32 estimated $ 12M. This oil on canvas 53 x 53 cm is a convincing demonstration of the first level of the suprematist reconstruction at such a point that it was undoubtedly made for the preparation of Zero-Ten.
It is dominated by a very saturated dark yellow truncated triangle which is the projection of a sloping rectangle onto the surface of the canvas. A group of two small rectangles partially masking the yellow form can be viewed in space as co-planar with its upper edge.
A few years later, Rodchenko's constructivism was a follow-up to Malevich's suprematism, adding a desire to create useful structures for architecture and furnishings. Malevich did not need to follow Rodchenko : independently from Mondrian he had been one of the very first artists to offer a vision of the universe free from any thematic reference.
SOLD for $ 21M including premium
Malevich participates in Tramway V but is already somehow a rebel. He introduces his own works with a comment which is indeed a profession of faith for an abstract art : "the author ignores the contents of these paintings".
The scandal of Tramway V meets the expectations of its organizers and another exhibition will be managed before the end of the year. Malevich understands that his time has come : he will be the apostle of the subject-less art.
He begins by isolating the basic figures, invariably on a white background, and reaches in May the ultimate expression of this new artistic grammar, the black square. Aware of the promising importance of this invention, he returns to build complex compositions expressing the forces of the universe by the opposition of colors circumscribed in strictly geometrical forms. To avoid any figurative interpretation he goes so far as to banish the horizontal line which evokes the horizon.
In the December exhibition hermetically titled Zero-Ten, Malevich enters 39 paintings offering various degrees of reconstruction but physically dominated in their hanging by the Black Square. The loss of meaning allows the artist to change the position of the paintings. He is a precursor of the modern installation.
On May 16 in New York, Sotheby's sells a Composition of three forms, lot 32 estimated $ 12M. This oil on canvas 53 x 53 cm is a convincing demonstration of the first level of the suprematist reconstruction at such a point that it was undoubtedly made for the preparation of Zero-Ten.
It is dominated by a very saturated dark yellow truncated triangle which is the projection of a sloping rectangle onto the surface of the canvas. A group of two small rectangles partially masking the yellow form can be viewed in space as co-planar with its upper edge.
A few years later, Rodchenko's constructivism was a follow-up to Malevich's suprematism, adding a desire to create useful structures for architecture and furnishings. Malevich did not need to follow Rodchenko : independently from Mondrian he had been one of the very first artists to offer a vision of the universe free from any thematic reference.
SOLD for $ 21M including premium
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