Description:
Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Il’ia Il’ich Chashnik (the artist’s son), Leningrad
Lev Nussberg, Moscow, before 1976; France and Germany, after 1976
Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York, 1980
Thomas P. Whitney, Washington, Connecticut, 1980–2001

Label Text:
Il’ia Chashnik was among Kazimir Malevich’s most talented students. In his art, he mostly utilized elementary geometric forms, such as circles and quadrangles, and basic colors—black, white, and red. With these simple instruments, Chashnik was able to create his own version of the Suprematist style. Just like his teacher Malevich, he believed that Suprematism could offer solutions to numerous problems that modern architecture and urban planning were grappling with, and that it could rebuild the very foundations of human life. “This work will lead to the reshaping of the Earth as a new kind of nature, when humanity, feeling the dynamism of space, will come to Suprematism as the idea of a new planetary system,” Chashnik wrote. "Cosmos—Red Circle on Black Surface" is believed to be one of the most important pieces ever created by the artist. It was painted circa 1925, a few years before Chashnik’s premature death and decades before the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union, marking the beginning of the Space Age. Today, this work remains a vivid expression of the visionary character and the cosmic aspirations of the early 20th-century avant-garde.

Maria Timina

Tags:
abstract; red; circles; lines; symbolism

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2001.198

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