Born in Kiev in 1878, the Ukrainian-Russian painter Avant-garde Kazimir Malevich was the foremost pioneer in 20th-century abstract art, whose increasingly clear works shifted from Cubo-Futurism to the basis of the Suprematism art movement. We explore ten very captivating works, from the familiar Black Box to Suprematist Composition, among very expensive Russian paintings in art history.

Red Square (Realism of Female Farmers in Two Dimensions)
Russian State Museum – 1915

Part of the collection at the Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg, the 1915 activity Malevich Red Square (the Realism of Peasant Female Farmers in Two Dimensions) – a rather shaky red parallelogram against a transparent white background – perhaps very abstract, but indisputable symbolism of paint recommended by the captive subtitle. Recently exhibited on a retrospective of Malevich at Tate Modern in London – the first British retrospection of artists – Observer of art critic Laura Cumming talks about the red box, “Even after a century of abstract art, nothing seems so radical as this simple, stunning format.”

Black box
Galeri Tretyakov – 1915

Praised by Tate as “a sophisticated monochrome masterpiece,” the Black Box is an abstract art scene that was demonstrated at one time the Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting 0.10 in 1915 and marked the start of Malevich Suprematism – a new, non-objective art style characterized by geometric and monochromatic palettes reflected by artists as expressions of pure feeling, not exploring practical value, no ideas, no” promised land. Along with not a little of Malevich’s work, the Black Box vanished from public view after his death in 1935 after socialist realism was designated as the legitimate artistic style of the Soviet Union. It was not returned to display again until 1980.

Suprematist Composition
Private Collection – 1916

Painted in 1916, the same year that Malevich wrote the Suprematist Manifesto, Suprematist Composition created art history when it was marketed for $ 60 million in 2008 at Sotheby’s in New York, making it the most expensive Russian painting ever auctionedMalevich traveled with the Warsaw Soup Composition in 1927 to see his exhibition and also in Berlin, along with many other works, to be saved in Germany. Later left in a safe location for German architects and authors, Hugo Häring who was reportedly selling the painting to the Stedelijk Amsterdam Museum, the Suprematist composition remained in the Netherlands for the next 50 years to be reversed to Malevich’s heir before the auction.

The Knife Grinder (Shimmering Principle)
Yale University Art Gallery – 1912-1913

A man was working Cubo-Futurist Malevich, The Knife Grinder – Located in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut – combining elements of geometry and cubist fragmentation with Futurism’s creative energy. Painted between 1912 and 1913, The Knife Grinder reflects a man working hard against an industrial background with an easy array of colorful metallic colors and fragments multiplied to encourage energy and movement.

Mystical Suprematism (Black Cross on a Red Oval)
Private Collection – 1920-1922

Malevich, Mystical Suprematism (Black Cross on the Red Oval) – Praised by Simon Shaw, deputy head of sales elements for Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art, “the moment when Malevich was in a very radical, iconoclastic and strong position” – marketed in 2015 equivalent to $ 37.7 million. While the paintings, which were created in the early 1920s, did not scoop enough not a little at the auction as the work of Malevich Suprematist Composition, it remained among the most expensive Russian paintings ever marketed – there with works belonging to Wassily Kandinsky Study for Improvisation 8 and belonging Nikolai Roerich Madonna Laboris.

Suprematism, Construction 18th
Private Collection – 1915

Compared to Suprematist works that are higher than Malevich, Suprematism, 18th Construction went for a song when it was marketed in Sotheby’s 2015 auction in London for only £ 21.4 million ($ 33.8 million). Declared by Sotheby’s as “an avant-garde work of the 20th century,” Suprematism, 18th construction was painted in 1915. In the style of Suprematism which is often minimalist, this work is dominated by a format like black trapezoid which is supported by four colored geometric arrangements and rests on what named artists on the ‘white cliff’ from a cruel and colorless setting.

Women with Buckets: Dynamic Settings
Museum of Modern Art – 1912-1913

Quite the same in the composition and theme of The Knife Grinder and painted at the same time, Malevich’s Woman with Ember: Dynamic Settings is a further example of the period of the Cubo-Futurist artists. Work – one of its interconnected abstractions, geometric and cold formats, metallic tones reveals a hard-working peasant woman – had been loaned to the Museum of Modern Art since 1935 until the New York City institution ended in 1960.