# Kazimir Malevic artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/kazimir-malevic/
Profile generated: 2026-05-13T06:02:00.000Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1879-02-23
- Death date: 1935-05-15
- Nationality: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish
- Movements: Suprematism, Russian avant-garde, Cubo-Futurism
- Common media: Oil painting, Watercolor, Sculpture, Ceramics, Graphic works / drawings, Stage and set design (scenography)

## About Kazimir Malevic

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (1879–1935) was a Russian avant-garde painter, sculptor, and art theorist of Polish ancestry, widely recognized as the founder of Suprematism—one of the most radical abstract art movements of the twentieth century. Born in Kyiv to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Malevich studied and worked in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where he absorbed Cubo-Futurist ideas before developing his signature non-objective geometric style in 1915. His iconic Black Square and related Suprematist compositions stripped painting down to elemental shapes and pure color, challenging centuries of representational tradition. Beyond painting, Malevich worked in stage design, ceramics, architecture, and graphic art, and held academic and museum directorship positions. His theoretical writings on art remain influential. Major museums including MoMA, Tate, and the Stedelijk Museum hold significant collections of his work. Collectors encounter Malevich pieces across a range of media, from oils and watercolors to drawings and ceramics.

## Common works and media

Malevich worked prolifically across media. Oil paintings range from early Impressionist-influenced landscapes to Cubo-Futurist compositions and the geometric Suprematist abstractions for which he is best known. Works on paper—including pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings—appear regularly at auction. He also designed ceramics, stage sets, and architectural models (known as architectons), and produced graphic prints and posters. Later works revisit peasant and figurative subjects. Collectors may encounter authenticated paintings, drawings, watercolors, ceramic vessels, and printed or reproduced images of his most iconic compositions.

## Market and appraisal context

Malevich is among the most important figures of the twentieth-century avant-garde, and authentic works command strong interest at auction. Suprematist oil paintings are exceedingly rare in private hands and represent the highest tier of his market. More commonly available are works on paper, drawings, later figurative paintings, and ceramic pieces. Provenance is a central concern: wartime displacement, Soviet-era museum deaccessions, and complex restitution histories mean collectors must exercise due diligence. Attribution should be confirmed through expert scholarly review. Medium, date, subject, condition, and documented exhibition history all influence appraisal value significantly.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine independent artist identity research from museum, library authority, and scholarly sources with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Kazimir Malevich, identity data is grounded in records from the Getty Union List of Artist Names, VIAF, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, the Library of Congress, MoMA, and Tate.

## Sources

- RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/52150
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q130777
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500004959
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/14773228/
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/3710
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kazimir-malevich-1561