Russian Art

Malevich, K. S. "Suprematism: Sportsmen". 1928 - 1932

Notes: Suprematism within the Contour of the Sportsmen. The back of this canvas is inscribed: "Suprematism within the contour of the 1915 'Sportsmen.'" An earlier statement by the artist helps explain the orchestration of color in this canvas and in the other figurative paintings of 1928-1932: "I have conquered the lines of the colored sky, I have plucked the colors, put them into a bag I have made, and tied it with a knot." (From the catalogue of the Tenth State Exhibition; "Nonobjective Creation and Suprematism," Moscow, 1919.) Ironically, this canvas was included in the exhibition of 1932, "Art from the Imperialist Epoch," and displayed as an example of pre-revolutionary "bourgeois" art. The atmosphere of the times was clearly dangerous for a man of Malevich's profound convictions. The artist was, in fact, imprisoned from the end of September to the beginning of December 1930 and interrogated about his ideology.