Artists and architects
Kazymyr Malevych (Kazimir Malevich)
February 23, 1879 — May 15, 1935
- Avant-garde artist
- Born in Kyiv
Kyiv-born founder of Suprematism and author of the Black Square. He studied at a Kyiv drawing school and taught at the Kyiv Art Institute in 1928–1930.
Biography
Kazimir Malevich (in Ukrainian, Kazymyr Malevych) was born in Kyiv in February 1879 into the Polish family of Seweryn and Ludwika Malewicz; he was baptised at the Roman Catholic Church of St Alexander, which still stands on Kostolna Street. For a long time his birthplace was thought to be 15 Bulionska Street, but more recent research, carried out for the documentary “Malevich”, showed that he was born at the estate of his aunt Maria Orzechowska on Zhylianska Street. The house no longer exists.
He spent his childhood in Ukrainian villages and small towns where his father worked at sugar refineries. Malevich later recalled that his first art teachers were the peasant women who painted their cottages. In the mid-1890s he briefly attended the Kyiv Drawing School, where he was encouraged by the painter Mykola Pymonenko.
World fame came with the Black Square and Suprematism, first shown at the “0,10” exhibition in Petrograd in 1915. He returned to Kyiv as an acclaimed master: in 1928–1930 he taught at the Kyiv Art Institute (today the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture) alongside Oleksandr Bohomazov, Viktor Palmov and Vladimir Tatlin. At the same time dozens of his essays on new art appeared in the Kharkiv journal “Nova Generatsiia”.
In 1930, as the purges began, Malevich and other avant-garde professors were removed from the institute. That same year he was arrested in Leningrad, where he died in 1935.
In 2012 Kyiv City Council renamed Bozhenka Street as Kazymyra Malevycha Street, in the same neighbourhood where he was born. Today Malevich is increasingly remembered as a Kyivan and a key figure of the Ukrainian avant-garde.
Life timeline
- 1879 Born in Kyiv Baptised at St Alexander’s Church.
- 1890-ті Drawing school Briefly studies at the Kyiv Drawing School.
- 1915 Black Square Shows Suprematist canvases at the “0,10” exhibition in Petrograd.
- 1928 Professor in Kyiv Begins teaching at the Kyiv Art Institute.
- 1930 Purges Removed from the institute; arrested in Leningrad that autumn.
- 1935 Death Dies in Leningrad.
- 2012 Malevich Street Kyiv names a street after him.
Key achievements
- Suprematism Founded one of the most influential movements of 20th-century abstract art.
- Kyiv Art Institute Taught in Kyiv alongside Bohomazov, Palmov and Tatlin.
- Theorist of new art Published essays in the Ukrainian journal Nova Generatsiia.
Kyiv in their life
- Zhylianska Street — the artist was born here, at his aunt Maria Orzechowska’s estate (not preserved).
- St Alexander’s Church (17 Kostolna St) — where Malevich was baptised.
- Kyiv Art Institute (now the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture) — he taught here in 1928–1930.
- Kazymyra Malevycha Street (formerly Bozhenka St) — named after him in 2012.
Gallery
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