Stories & Legends

Malevich, the creator for many of mysterious paintings and equally complicated texts, was a convenient personality for mythologization. He himself was not averse to participating in decorating his biography with spectacular fables.

Once passing by an art school, Malevich heard a whisper among the applicants who were about to take the entrance exams: “Malevich, Malevich is coming.” “And they tried to touch me secretly in order to pass the exam. They lightly touch me from behind, and I walked, not showing that I notice,” he later said, “I didn’t want to scare away their faith!”

Malevich had many enemies who never missed an opportunity to settle scores with him. Thus, the poet and avant-garde artist Igor Terentiev reported that Malevich’s non-objective painting “was a way of encrypted transmission abroad of information about the Soviet Union.” According to him, all these squares, architectons, etc. were actually plans for Soviet secret objects. As happens in legends, no proof exhists.

Malevich and artist Vladimir Tatlin had contrasting views on art. While Malevich advocated rejecting utilitarianism and reaching for the cosmos, Tatlin championed materialism and craftsmanship. In 1916 Tatlin organized the "Magazin" ("Shop") exhibition in Moscow, banning the display of Suprematist works. In response, Malevich turned himself into an exhibit, donning the numbers "0.1" on his forehead and a poster declaring his role: "I am the Apostle of groundbreaking art concepts, and as the SURGEON OF THE MIND reigning on the throne of creative pride, I proclaim the ACADEMY to be a stable for philistines." Tatlin responded by knocking the chair out from under Malevich and inviting him to sit on geometry and color.

The faceted glass, popular in the Soviet Union and later in the world, was born thanks to Malevich. In 1930 the artist was sent to prison where he stayed for two and a half months on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda. There he noticed uncomfortable glasses made of thin glass, which burst when squeezed in his hand. After being released from prison, he suggested that the sculptor Vera Mukhina “improve” the shape of the glass by adding edges to it. The idea turned out to be so successful that faceted glasses were put into mass production and even exists until today.

Greenish doctor's coats and orange vests of road workers are also considered a Malevich's design. In his theoretical works, he proved that white color increases pain, and orange color attracts attention more than others and signals danger.