Chagall to Malevich: The Russian Avant-Gardes - Tapa dura

The Russian Avant-Garde, which brought about an artistic revolution between 1905 and 1934, represents one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of 20th-century art. Artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Chagall are highly esteemed the world over. But this movement was much more diverse than is generally realised. For the first time this artistic wealth is being presented in a major sequence of pictures. 140 masterpieces of painting demonstrate the parallel development of widely different styles, design principles and aesthetic ideas. The avant-garde artists influenced each other or were sometimes in conflict with each other. At the same time you could find advocates of representational Expressionism and supporters of pure abstraction; styles like Primitivism, Cubo-Futurism and Suprematism followed each other in succession. Surprising contrasts of works by different artists demonstrate the differences, so that the successive conflicting –isms are clearly demonstrated. Through this visual confrontation the picture of all the many different forms of Russian avant-garde come alive.

Klaus Albrecht Schroder is an art historian and director of the Albertina, a museum in Vienna, Austria, with a focus on old master prints and drawings and twentieth-century art.