Celebrating Suprematism Russian History and Culture Editors-in-Chief Jeffrey P. Brooks (The Johns Hopkins University) Christina Lodder (University of Kent) Volume 22 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rhc Celebrating Suprematism New Approaches to the Art of Kazimir Malevich Edited by Christina Lodder Cover illustration: Installation photograph of Kazimir Malevich’s display of Suprematist Paintings at The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings, 0.10 (Zero-Ten), in Petrograd, 19 December 1915 – 19 January 1916. Photograph private collection. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lodder, Christina, 1948- editor. Title: Celebrating Suprematism : new approaches to the art of Kazimir Malevich / edited by Christina Lodder. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: Russian history and culture, ISSN1877-7791 ; Volume 22 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN2018037205 (print) | LCCN2018046303 (ebook) | ISBN9789004384989 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004384873 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Malevich, Kazimir Severinovich, 1878-1935–Criticism and interpretation. | Suprematism in art. | UNOVIS (Group) Classification: LCCN6999.M34 (ebook) | LCCN6999.M34C452019 (print) | DDC 700.92–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037205 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN1877-7791 ISBN 978-90-04-38487-3 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-38498-9 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents Acknowledgements vii List of Illustrations ix Notes on Contributors xvii Introduction 1 Christina Lodder 1 New Information Concerning The Black Square 11 Irina Vakar 2 Defining Suprematism: The Year of Discovery 29 Charlotte Douglas 3 Malevich, the Fourth Dimension, and the Ether of Space One Hundred Years Later 44 Linda Dalrymple Henderson 4 The Path of Empirical Criticism in Russia or ‘The Milky Way of Inventors’ 81 Alexander Bouras 5 Kazimir Malevich, Unovis, and the Poetics of Materiality 105 Maria Kokkori, Alexander Bouras and Irina Karasik 6 Branches of Unovis in Smolensk and Orenburg 126 Alexander Lisov 7 Suprematism and/or Supremacy of Architecture 144 Samuel Johnson 8 Lazar Khidekel and Suprematism as an Embodiment of the Infinite 161 Regina Khidekel 9 ‘…In our time, when it became We …’: A Previously Unknown Essay by Kazimir Malevich 187 Tatiana Goriacheva vi Contents 10 ‘A thing of quality defies being produced in quantity’: Suprematist Porcelain and Its Afterlife in Leningrad Design 198 Yulia Karpova 11 Suprematist Textiles 221 Julia Tulovsky 12 Suprematism: A Shortcut into the Future: The Reception of Malevich by Polish and Hungarian Artists during the Inter-War Period 240 Éva Forgács 13 Conflicting Approaches to Creativity? Suprematism and Constructivism 259 Christina Lodder Index 289 Acknowledgements The contents of this volume are based on papers that were originally delivered at the conference – ‘Celebrating 100 Years of Suprematism’ – which was held at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University New York, in December 2015, under the auspices of the Malevich Society, the Harriman Institute, the Lazar Khidekel Society, the Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA), and the organisation Russian Art and Culture. A great debt of gratitude is owed to the Harriman Institute for host- ing the conference, and especially to Professor Alan Timberlake and his team for their exceptional generosity, organisational skill and kindness. In addition, as President of the Malevich Society, the editor would like to thank every- one for their co-operation, including Regina and Mark Khidekel of the Lazar Khidekel Society, Natasha Kurchanova of SHERA, and members of the Board of the Malevich Society, especially Professor Charlotte Douglas, Dr Maria Kokkori and Dr Julia Tulovsky. A special debt of gratitude is owed to the Director of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Dr Zelfira Tregulnova for facilitating and supporting this whole venture in so many ways. The editor is extremely grateful to all those contributors who agreed to publish their papers in this collection, for their patience in dealing with end- less queries and their diligence in meeting deadlines. In addition, the editor would like to thank Professor Jeffrey Brooks for his invaluable suggestions and to the various private individuals and institutions that have given per- mission for works and images to be reproduced, especially The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; The State Literary Museum, Moscow; The Museum Tsarit- syno, Moscow; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; The State Mu- seum of Theatre and Music, St. Petersburg; The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; The State Mustafaev Azerbaijan Museum of Art, Baku; The State Radishchev Museum, Saratov; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Stedelijk Mu- seum, Amsterdam; The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Dr Maria Tsantsangolou and The State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; The Lazar Khidekel Family Archive & Collec- tion, New York; and Dr Alexander Lavrentiev and The Rodchenko-Stepanova Archive, Moscow. All the scholars involved in this publication would also like to take this opportunity to express their particular gratitude to the staff of the follow- ing archives, libraries, and galleries who gave them assistance and advice in viii Acknowledgements the course of their research: The State Russian Museum and The Manuscript Department of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow; The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; The Rodchenko-Stepanova Archive, Moscow; The State Archive of Vitebsk Province, Vitebsk; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and The Lazar Khidekel Archive, New York. Finally, the editor would like to thank all the staff at Brill, especially Ivo Romein and Saskia van der Knaap for their help and support in realising this publication, as well as family and friends for being there when things got tough. A big thank you to you all! List of Illustrations Irina Vakar 1.1 Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, 1915, oil on canvas, 79.5 × 79.5 cm., State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 12 1.2 Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, 1915, pencil on paper, 9 × 8.2 cm., State Literary Museum, Moscow. 15 1.3 Kazimir Malevich, Design of a Backdrop for the First Act of the Opera ‘Victory over the Sun’, 1915, pencil on paper, 10 × 9.5 cm., State Literary Museum, Moscow. 16 1.4 Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition, 1915, oil on canvas, 101.5 × 62 cm., Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. 17 1.5 Consolidated Radiograph image of the paintings beneath The Black Square. The image represents the consolidation of 12 x-rays. Photograph courtesy of The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 19 1.6 Radiograph showing a reconstruction of the first painting, a Cubo-Futurist Composition. Photograph courtesy of The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 20 1.7 Kazimir Malevich, The Guardsman, 1913, oil on canvas, 57 × 66.5 cm., Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. 21 1.8 Radiograph of Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, 1915, revealing a Proto-Suprematist Composition underneath. Photograph courtesy of The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 22 1.9 Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, 1915, oil on canvas, 79.5 × 79.5 cm., State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Detail. 23 1.10 Kazimir Malevich, Design of a Backcloth for the First Scene of the Second Act of the Opera ‘Victory over the Sun’, 1913, pencil on paper, 21 × 27 cm., State Museum of Theatre and Music, St. Petersburg. 25 1.11 Kazimir Malevich, Untitled Alogist Composition, early 1915, pencil on paper, private collection. 26 Linda Dalrymple Henderson 3.1 Installation photograph of Kazimir Malevich’s display of Suprematist Paintings at The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings, 0.10 (Zero-Ten), in Petrograd, 19 December 1915 – 19 January 1916, Petrograd. Photograph private collection. 45 3.2 Umberto Boccioni, Dynamism of a Soccer Player, 1913, oil on canvas, 193.2 × 201 cm., The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, x ListofIllustrations New York. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, New York. 59 3.3 Kazimir Malevich, Painterly Realism of a Football Player: Colour Masses in the Fourth Dimension, 1915, oil on canvas, 70.2 × 44.1 cm., The Art Institute of Chicago. Photograph: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, New York. 61 3.4 Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition, 1915, oil on