Malevich and The American Legacy

This extensively illustrated volume examines the work of the Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich and his influence on American art. Malevich, one of the pioneers of non-objective art, developed Suprematism as an art of pure form. He envisioned his paintings as geometry stripped of any attachment to the representation of real objects—an elemental alphabet of a pictorial language. A key figure in the early Soviet avant-garde, he was severely criticized during the Stalin era but embraced by the West in the postwar era. This book brings together a selection of Malevich’s most important works with ones by modern and contemporary American artists whose work is shaped by Malevich’s legacy, including Carl Andre, John Baldessari, Alexander Calder, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, James Turrell, and Cy Twombly. Essays by leading scholars and interviews with key postwar artists make this volume essential documentation of the history of twentieth century abstraction.