Ilya chashnik

Ilya Grigorevich Chashnik was a suprematist artist, a pupil of Kazimir Malevich and a founding member of the UNOVIS school.
The Russian artist Ilya Chashnik was one of the foremost disciples of Kazimir Malevich and espoused the Suprematist principles advocated by the latter.
View Ilya Chashnik's artworks on artnet.

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Suprematist Composition

During the period immediately after the Revolution, Ilya Chashnik belonged to the new generation of young Suprematist artists — such as Suetin and El Lissitzky — associated with Kazimir Malevich at the Vitebsk Artistic-Practical Institute, where he studied from 1919 to 1922. During those years he also belonged to the Suprematist group Unovis (Affirmers of the New Art), established by Malevich in 1919, and took part along with the other members of the group in the Exhibition of the Painting of Petrograd Artists of all Trends, held in 1923. Although there is insufficient information in the exhibition catalogue to identify the works, John Bowlt and Nicoletta Misler are inclined to think that the Suprematist Composition in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection was included in the Petrograd show on the grounds of the inscriptions on the back of the canvas.

In the present painting, of which there are several versions, Chashnik follows the Suprematist ideas of interpreting reality using non-objective means. He provides a utopian image of a series of floati

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Despite his early death, the Russian artist Ilya Chashnik was one of the foremost disciples of Kazimir Malevich and espoused the Suprematist principles advocated by the latter. He was born into a humble Jewish family in Latvia and spent his childhood in Vitebsk, where he was introduced to the world of painting by a local artist.

Chashnik moved to Moscow in 1919 to further his artistic training at the Higher State Art-Technical-Studios (Vkhutemas) in Moscow, but his attraction for the work of Marc Chagall spurred him to return to Vitebsk after a few months to attend the art school he directed. However, after he met Malevich, who taught at the same school, his art underwent a radical change of direction and he became one of the most talented and faithful followers of his Suprematist master. During the winter of 1919–20, Malevich and a group of students formed the group known as Unovis (Affirmers of the New Art). Among those involved in the initiative were Ilya Chashnik and Nikolai Suetin, who became close friends and went on to collaborate in various projects. Chashnik developed

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Ilya Chashnik

Chashnik (1902 -1929) was a founding member of UNOVIS and Suprematist artist.

He began studying art as an 11-year-old in Yehuda Pen’s School of Drawing and Painting which operated as a private enterprise in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire. Whilst it wasn’t technically a Jewish school, many of its pupils and teachers were and it did not open on a Saturday. Chashnik was taught by Marc Chagall.

Illya Chashnik The Thistle
(public domain)

Born into a Jewish family in Lucyn in the Russian Empire, in what is today in Latvia, Chashnik moved to Moscow after the revolution in 1918 to work in the new Soviet States Art Workshops which were directed by Kazimir Malevich. When Malevich was offered the opportunity to take a senior role at the Vitebsk School of Drawing and Painting by Chagall, Chashnik followed him leaving Moscow behind. Two years later Chagall left for Paris handing over total responsibility to Malevich.

The school became a hotbed of creativity and development of Soviet visual propaganda and a laboratory for the development of communist idea