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Italian, 20th century, male.

Born 1904, in Loreto; died 1992, in Milan.

Painter. Still-lifes.

Attilio Alfieri began to paint under the dual influence of Cubism and Futurism. Around 1930 he experimented also with the collage technique. Afterwards he went through a period of Classical Representation, and then evolved in the direction of an informal, material Abstraction. Thick and generous materials are fairly constant throughout his many different periods. This is particularly true of his Representational art and can be observed in the skilful brushwork of his series of vegetable still-lifes....

(b Geneva, Feb 25, 1872; d Lausanne, Jan 1, 1938).

Swiss painter and multimedia artist . From 1890/91 she studied under Hugues Bovy (1841–1903) and Denise Sarkissof at the Ecole d’Art in Geneva. A travel scholarship enabled her to study in Munich for a year. From 1904 until the outbreak of World War I Bailly lived in Paris, where she associated with Cubist artists, including Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Marie Laurencin and Sonia Lewitska (1882–1914). From 1905 to 1926 she exhibited regularly at the Salon d’Automne. From 1906 to 1910 her work was influenced by Fauvism, and from 1910 she became interested in Cubism and Futurism: Equestrian Fantasy with Pink Lady (1913; Zurich, Gal. Strunskaja) is reminiscent of the work of Gino Severini or Franz Marc in its rhythmic movement and planar fragmentation of horses and riders into coloured patterns. Other paintings of this period that are also indebted to these movements include ...

(Davidovich)

(b Chernyanka, Ukraine, March 27, 1887; d Salonika, Greece, 1917).

Ukrainian painter, brother of David Burlyuk. He first studied at the Odessa School of Art and then, in 1903, with Anton Ažbé in Munich. After his return to Russia, he became an active contributor to many of the newly formed exhibition groups there, among them Jack of Diamonds and Union of Youth. He also contributed to exhibitions in Munich and Berlin and was well aware of the latest developments in European painting, although he preferred to appear as an untaught ‘savage’. Mikhail Larionov’s primitivizing portrait of Vladimir, probably from the summer of 1910 (Lyon, Mus. B.-A.), shows him in a peasant shirt, carrying the heavy lifting weights that he brought along to poetry readings and art exhibitions.

Vladimir’s portrait of the poet Benedikt Livshits (1911; New York, Ella Jaffe Freidus priv. col.; see Livshits, p. 49) is organized in Cubist planes, though without fragmentation. However, a slightly later work, ...

Term first used in 1913 in a lecture, later published, by the Russian art critic Korney Chukovsky (1882–1969) in reference to a group of Russian avant-garde poets whose work was seen to relate to French Cubism and Italian Futurism; it was subsequently adopted by painters and is now used by art historians to refer to Russian art works of the period 1912–15 that combine aspects of both styles. Initially the term was applied to the work of the poets Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksey Kruchonykh, Velimir Khlebnikov, Benedikt Livshits (1886–1939) and Vasily Kamensky (1864–1961), who were grouped around the painter David Burlyuk. Their raucous poetry recitals, public clowning, painted faces and ridiculous clothes emulated the activities of the Italians and earned them the name of Russian Futurists. In poetic output, however, only Mayakovsky could be compared with the Italians; his poem ‘Along the Echoes of the City’, for example, which describes various street noises, is reminiscent of Luigi Russolo’s manifesto ...

(Alexandrovna)

(b Belostok, Russia [now Białystok, Poland], Jan 6, 1882; d Fontenay-aux-Roses, Paris, March 17, 1949).

Russian painter and designer of Polish birth. After graduating in 1906 from art school in Kiev, Exter married in 1908 and went to Paris, where she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. The following year she rented a studio in Paris and became acquainted with Picasso, Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob and with the Italian Futurists Filippo Marinetti, Giovanni Papini and Ardengo Soffici (with whom she shared a studio in 1914). In Paris she also attended the Vasil’yeva Free Russian Academy, where Fernand Léger gave two important lectures on modern art. In the years 1909–14 Exter travelled extensively between Paris, Moscow and Kiev, playing an important role in disseminating Cubist and Futurist ideas among the Russian avant-garde. She participated in many important avant-garde exhibitions in Russia and the Ukraine, including David Burlyuk’s Link (Kiev, 1908), the first and second Izdebsky Salons (Odessa, 1909–10; Kiev and St Petersburg, ...

(Sergeyevna)

(b Negayevo, Tula Province, June 16, 1881: d Paris, Oct 17, 1962).

Russian painter, stage designer, printmaker and illustrator. She was a leading artist of the Russian avant-garde in the early 20th century but became a celebrity in the West through her work for Serge (de) Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. During the 1920s she played a significant role within the Ecole de Paris and continued to live and work in France until her death.

She was the daughter of Sergey Mikhaylovich Goncharov, an architect, and Yekaterina Il’icha Belyayeva but grew up in her grandmother’s home at Ladyzhino, near Kaluga, in Tula Province. She attended the Fourth Gymnasium for Girls in Moscow and in 1898 entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a sculpture student where she was taught by Paolo Troubetskoy. At the school Goncharova became friendly with Mikhail Larionov. He became her lifelong companion and colleague, and he encouraged her to relinquish sculpture for painting. Goncharova’s early work comprised mainly pastels, which were exhibited in ...

(Viktor Vladimirovich)

(b Tundutov, Astrakhan, Nov 9, 1885; d Santalovo, Novgorod province, June 28, 1922).

Russian poet. He studied mathematics, biology and philology at Kazan’ University before devoting himself to literature. He became a member of the Hylaea circle of Futurist poets grouped around the artist David Burlyuk, which was responsible for the production of a large number of Russian Futurist books between c. 1912 and 1916. Khlebnikov’s theory of a transrational language (zaum), formulated in 1913 with his fellow poet Aleksey Kruchonykh, had a profound influence on the work of avant-garde artists, especially Kazimir Malevich, Jean Pougny (Ivan Puni), Pavel Filonov, Vladimir Tatlin and Pyotr Miturich. Literally ‘beyond the mind’ or ‘beyond sense’, zaum was used by Khlebnikov to signify the rejection of a conventional logic that defines words in terms of a specific meaning. It involved the ‘liberation’ of words, of parts of words and of individual letters and sounds from their accepted meaning, so that they could take on new meanings within a higher system of logic that literally transcends reason. Khlebnikov’s theories for a universal, transnational language were expounded in several articles written between ...

(Yeliseyevich)

(b Olevka, Kherson province, 1886; d Moscow, 1968).

Russian poet and critic of Ukrainian birth. He is best known for his creation of Russian Futurist books between 1912 and 1916 in collaboration with the avant-garde artists Natal’ya Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich and Ol’ga Rozanova. These books, some of which were written with Velimir Khlebnikov, are characterized by deliberate mistakes and misprints, bold handwriting or irregular typefaces and printed on differently textured paper or wallpaper. The accompanying illustrations were executed in a coarse and primitive style to match the harsh and dissonant tones of the poetry. The books include Igra v adu (‘A game in Hell’; Moscow, 1912 and 1914), Mirskontsa (‘The world backwards’; Moscow, 1912), Pomada (Moscow, 1913), Utinoye gnezdyshko…durnykh slov (‘A duck’s nest…of bad words’; St Petersburg, 1913), Te Li Le (St Petersburg, 1914), Zaumnaya kniga (‘Transrational book’; Moscow, 1915), Voyna (‘War’; Petrograd, 1915) and Vselenskaya voyna (‘Universal war’; Petrograd, ...

(b Vlčkovice, nr Hradec Králové, Aug 21, 1884; d Prague, Nov 27, 1918).

Bohemian painter, printmaker and draughtsman. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, but left in 1906 to study at the Reale Istituto di Belle Arti in Florence. In the same year, with Emil Filla and Antonin Procházka among others, he founded Eight, the, a group of artists who felt the need of innovation in their art, as exemplified by Cubism and German Expressionism. In 1909 and 1910 he visited Paris. During the next two years he exhibited with the Neue Sezession in Berlin and in 1913 in Düsseldorf. His work evolved rapidly from Impressionism, Expressionism and a specific kind of Cubism to Italian Futurism.

The young Kubišta was strongly affected by the work of Munch exhibited in Prague in 1905. Until 1910 he worked in an Expressionist style, which brought him closer to the German painters associated with Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. The first notable example of this period was ...

(Fyodorovich)

(b Tiraspol, Moldova, June 3, 1881; d Fontenay-aux-Roses, nr Paris, May 10, 1964).

Russian painter, stage designer, printmaker, illustrator, draughtsman and writer of Moldovan birth. He was a leader of the Russian avant-garde before World War I but came to prominence in the West through his work for Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. During the 1920s he played a significant role within the Ecole de Paris and continued to live and work in France until his death.

He was the son of Fyodor Mikhailovich Larionov, a doctor and pharmacist, and Aleksandra Fyodorovna Petrovskaya, but he grew up in his grandparents’ home in Tiraspol. He completed his secondary education at the Voskresensky Technical High School in Moscow and in 1898 entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Here he studied under Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin, and he also became friendly with Natal’ya Goncharova who was to remain his lifelong companion and colleague. Larionov’s work soon caught the imagination of collectors and critics. In ...

English exhibiting society founded in November 1913. On its foundation it absorbed many members of the Camden Town Group and also incorporated the more avant-garde artists influenced by Cubism and Futurism, some of whom afterwards joined the Vorticist movement (see Vorticism). Among the founder-members were David Bomberg, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jacob Epstein, Harold Gilman (the group’s first president until his death in 1919), Charles Ginner, Spencer Gore, Percy Wyndham Lewis, John Nash, Christopher Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth. The group was organized in opposition to the conservatism of the Royal Academy and the stagnation of the formerly radical New English Art Club. Though, as can be judged from the names of its founders, it had no homogeneous style or aesthetic, it acted as a focal point for the more progressive elements in British art at that time.

The first unofficial manifestation of the London Group was an exhibition held in Brighton (...

(Severinovich)

(b Kiev, Feb 26, 1878; d Leningrad [now St Petersburg], May 15, 1935).

Russian painter, printmaker, decorative artist and writer of Ukranian birth. One of the pioneers of abstract art, Malevich was a central figure in a succession of avant-garde movements during the period of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and immediately after. The style of severe geometric abstraction with which he is most closely associated, Suprematism (see fig.), was a leading force in the development of Constructivism, the repercussions of which continued to be felt throughout the 20th century. His work was suppressed in Soviet Russia in the 1930s and remained little known during the following two decades. The reassessment of his reputation in the West from the mid-1950s was matched by the renewed influence of his work on the paintings of Ad Reinhardt and on developments such as Zero, Hard-edge painting and Minimalism.

(Vladimirovich)

(b Bagdadi, Georgia, July 19, 1893; d Moscow, April 14, 1930).

Russian poet, critic, graphic designer and painter of Georgian birth. Although best known as a poet and playwright he studied painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1911–14) and, as a member of the Futurist group Hylea, was a pioneer of what later became known as Performance art. Mayakovsky’s family moved to Moscow on the death of his father in 1906, and he soon became involved in left-wing activities, for which he was repeatedly arrested. On passing the entrance examination of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in August 1911, his political activities shifted their focus to bohemian épatage. In the class for figure painting Mayakovsky met David Burlyuk, who with his brothers Nikolay Burlyuk (1890–1920) and Vladimir Burlyuk (1886–1917) and the ‘aviator poet’ Vasily Kamensky (1864–1961), formed the core of the Russian Futurist movement. Adopting a stance similar to that of Marinetti, whose Futurist manifesto (...

Italian, 20th century, male.

Born 1890, in Florence.

Painter, draughtsman.

Neri Nannetti made something of a name for himself in Florence around 1910 as an anti-academic and a member of the Futurist group who worked in a Cubism-inspired kinetic style. In 1916, he was heavily involved in the founding of the ...

(Sergeyevna)

(b Ivanovskoye, nr Moscow, April 24, 1889; d Moscow, May 25, 1924).

Russian painter and designer. She was born into a wealthy family and trained as a teacher before beginning her artistic studies with Stanislav Zhukovsky (1873–1944) and Konstantin Yuon. Their influence, particularly through their interest in luminous tonalities reminiscent of Impressionism, can be seen in early works by Popova such as Still-life with Basket of Fruit (1907–8; Athens, George Costakis Col.; see Rudenstine, pl. 725). Popova travelled extensively: in Kiev (1909) she was very impressed by the religious works of Mikhail Vrubel’; in Italy (1910) she admired Renaissance art, especially the paintings of Giotto. Between 1910 and 1911 she toured many parts of Russia, including Suzdal’, Novgorod, Yaroslavl’ and Pskov. Inspired by Russian architecture, frescoes and icons, she developed a less naturalistic approach. A more crucial influence was the first-hand knowledge of Cubism that she gained in Paris, which she visited with Nadezhda Udal’tsova during the winter of ...

(b Barcelona, Feb 2, 1923).

Spanish Catalan painter. He first became aware of avant-garde art in the late 1930s through magazines published in Spain, and he produced his first drawings at this time under the influence of Cubism and Futurism. He began studying architecture in 1942 at the University of Barcelona and in 1945 enrolled in painting and drawing classes at the Academia Tàrrega in Barcelona, where he produced his first paintings, still influenced by Cubism, for example Figure (1945; see 1985 exh. cat., p. 234). By 1950 he had begun to develop a personal figurative style that owed much to abstract art. He produced his first pure abstractions in 1957, initially concentrating exclusively on the interaction of the background with geometrically arranged shapes in sharply defined colours and faintly defined outlines; a typical example is Quarry (1958; Barcelona, Antoni de Senillosa priv. col., see 1985 exh. cat., p. 95). From 1959 to 1963...

(Vladimirovna)

(b Malenki, Vladimir province, 1886; d Moscow, Nov 8, 1918).

Russian painter. She trained at the Bol’shakov Art School and the Stroganov School of Applied Art in Moscow (1904–10). In 1911 she moved to St Petersburg where she became an active member of the Union of Youth group, exhibiting with them regularly (December 1911–14) and attending the Zvantseva School of Art (1912–13). In 1912 Rozanova began illustrating books of Futurist poetry written by Velimir Khlebnikov and her husband Aleksey Kruchonykh, including Igra v adu (‘A game in hell’, St Petersburg, 2/1913), Te li le (St Petersburg, 1914), Zaumnaya gniga (‘Transrational book’, Petrograd, 1915), Voina (‘War’, Petrograd, 1916) and Vselenskaya voina (‘Universal war’, Petrograd, 1916). Rozanova also wrote zaum or transrational Futurist verse (sound poetry). In 1913 she published her major statement on art, Osnovy novogo tvorchestva i prichiny ego neponimaniya. Having experimented with Cubism and Futurism in paintings such as ...

Hungarian, 20th century, male.

Born 1892; died 1944.

Painter, draughtsman. Nudes, landscapes.

János Schadl studied in Budapest. He was initially influenced by Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism, then moved towards Naturalism.

Budapest (Magyar Nemzeti Gal.): St Sebastian (1918, Indian ink)

Pécs (Janus Pannonius Mus.): ...

(b Cortona, April 7, 1883; d Paris, Feb 26, 1966).

Italian painter, mosaicist, stage designer and writer. One of the principal exponents of Futurism, he was an important link between French and Italian art. Although his most historically significant works were produced before World War I, he had a long career during which he continued to evolve his style, particularly in abstract schemes.

Severini studied in Cortona until the age of 15 when, because of a prank, he was expelled from all Italian schools. In 1899 he moved with his mother to Rome, where he worked as an accountant for a pipe-maker and later for an export agency. His passion for art led him to attend an evening class in drawing at a school known as ‘Gli incurabili’, and in the morning he studied perspective. Together with a group of friends that included Umberto Boccioni, whom he met in 1901, he was introduced to the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, the Russian novelists and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and to the general principles of Marxism. With Boccioni he often visited the studio of ...

[Rus.: Suprematizm]

Term coined in 1915 by Kazimir Malevich for a new system of art, explained in his booklet Ot kubizma i futurizma k suprematizmu: Novyy zhivopisnyy realizm (‘From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: the new realism in painting’). The term itself implied the supremacy of this new art in relation to the past. Malevich saw it as purely aesthetic and concerned only with form, free from any political or social meaning. He stressed the purity of shape, particularly of the square, and he regarded Suprematism as primarily an exploration of visual language comparable to contemporary developments in writing. Suprematist paintings were first displayed at the exhibition Poslednyaya futuristicheskaya vystavka kartin: 0.10 (‘The last Futurist exhibition of paintings: 0.10’) held in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) in December 1915; they comprised geometric forms which appeared to float against a white background. While Suprematism began before the Revolution of 1917, its influence, and the influence of Malevich’s radical approach to art, was pervasive in the early Soviet period; ...