Kasimir Malevich (1879–1935) was the first of fourteen children, although only nine of the children survived into adulthood. His family moved often and he spent most of his childhood in the villages of Ukraine amidst sugar-beet plantations, far from centers of culture. He delighted in peasant embroidery, and in decorated walls and stoves. Malevich studied drawing in Kiev from 1895 to 1896. In 1904 he moved to Moscow where he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the studio of Fedor Rerberg. In 1911 he participated in the second exhibition of the group Soyuz Molodyozhi (Union of Youth) in St. Petersburg, together with Vladimir Tatlin and, in 1912, the group held its third exhibition, which included works by Aleksandra Ekster, Tatlin and others. In 1914 Malevich exhibited his works in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris together with Alexander Archipenko, Sonia Delaunay, Aleksandra Ekster and Vadim Meller, among others. Malevich traveled to Germany in 1927. He visited the Bauhaus in Dessau and was able to arrange the publication of his essay “The Non-objective World,” which was then published as the eleventh volume in the Bauhausbücher series. Today, Malevich is known as one of the most important artists and theorists of the so-called Russian avant-garde.
