Lot 143

Kazimir Severinovič Malevič (1879 - 1935) BLACK RECTANGLE ON WHITE BACKGROUND

Unlike the artists Soutine and Chagall, who left their native country, then Tsarist Russia, to seek artistic inspiration in France, Malevich remained in Russia during a critical period of transformation and revolution and was a key figure in the revival of art and culture. Born in Ukraine in 1878, Malevich graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1905.

It was reality, abstracted into only basic shapes and completely devoid of descriptive criteria, that became the new avant-garde movement of which Malevich was the father. Suprematism exempts form from logic, reason, and superficiality and seeks true essence - deep and almost imperceptible to the eye. Malevich was aware that the potential of this new artistic system needed to be presented and asserted not in two or three works, but in a vast group of paintings. For almost six months, from June to early December 1915, Malevich created Suprematist paintings. According to Malevich, the truth could only be grasped through deep feeling, and the variations on the Black Square become in space an extraction of divine truth, a kind of icon of absolute purity. Even at the exhibition in December 1915, the Black Square was hung in the corner where an Orthodox icon is traditionally placed in a Russian house. The dream of Russian artists to surpass the innovation of their European colleagues became a reality. The black square seems to reveal those qualities that over many decades have become the essential characteristics of an influential worldwide artistic movement: minimalism.

Malevich used the signature of the framed square on his works between 1932-33. This fact is crucial, primarily because the artist himself was aware of the importance of the black square even after his shift away from Suprematism. Among the most important paintings with this signature are his own self-portrait, a portrait of his wife and her sister, persons well known to him. The very motif of the self-portrait is, within such a signature, a kind of image within an image, a proper tautology. The return to the black shape on a white field marks not only a recollection of his famous artistic period in contrast to his new and different work but also a relation to long-standing friendships. The first portrait of his good friend, sometimes referred to as Malevich's alter ego, Ivan Kliun, to whom the present painting is dedicated, was probably painted by Malevich in 1907; a number of portraits in various poses followed, the most famous under the title The Orthodox (1912).

The birthday wish in the offered painting dates from 1933. In that year, according to records, Malevich stayed for several days with Kliun, who was then celebrating his sixtieth birthday. In the same year, he also painted Kliun's last portrait.

The motif of the painting is related to Malevich's creative phase of Suprematism, which is most famously represented by his Black Square from 1915 (now in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, in addition to three other versions). The recipient of the donated painting, the painter Ivan Kliun, was one of Kazimir Malevich's earliest friends and artistic associates. The offered painting was published in book form in 1994. The authenticity is confirmed by Kliun's granddaughter Svetlana Kliunkova-Soloveichik with a notarized document, according to the contents of which the work was in the family's possession until 1956 (see also verso 2), since then in private collections, including the famous Boris Gribanov collection."

Dedication (in Cyrillic): 'Drugu I. Kljunu KM 1933 | Želaju ešče stol'ko-že!" Verso 1 (in Cyrillic): "Eta kartina byla dāvanena | I Kljunu v 1933 godu i dolgie gody | nachodilas' v jego dom." Verso 2 repeatedly stamped (in Cyrillic): "Udostoverjaju | eta veshch iz archiva russkogo | chudozhnika Ivan Klyun | (Klyunkov)..." [further illegible]. Ref: Svetlana Kliunkova-Soloveichik, Ivan Vasilievich Kliun. priv. ed. by the author 1994. ISBN: 0-9638440-0-8, p. 37 (repro) Exh.: 1991 New York. Restoration survey made by Akad. mal. rest. Martin Martan. Authenticity and authorship assessed in 1991 by Vyacheslav K. Zavalischin, specialist in Russian art and author of a publication on Kazimir Malevich. The offered painting is published and has been exhibited in Germany at the Wilhelm-Hack Museum.

Note: Charity auction

Income earned from items 141 to 147 (Paintings from Gribanov's collection) will be used to support Ukrainian artists, individual scholarships for Ukrainian students, help with accommodation for Ukrainian mothers, health care and assistance, psychological help. The auction fee does not apply to these items.