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Description: KASIMIR MALEVICH
Two double-sided lithographs from Suprematizm 34 Risunka.

Both on smooth, cream wove paper, 1920. 216x175 mm; 8 1/2x7 inches (sheets), full margins. Edition of approximately 100. Printed with the assistance of El Lissitzky at the Unovis Lithographic Workshop. Published by Unovis (Affirmation of New Art), Vitebsk.

In 1919, Malevich succeeded Marc Chagall as Director of the Vitebsk Art Labor Cooperative and subsequently formed Unovis and the Unovis Lithographic Workshop, to which he appointed El Lissitzky as a professor of architecture and applied arts. El Lissitzky might have hand printed the lithographs himself at Unovis in 1920 before his departure for Berlin, where he worked to establish contacts between artists in the USSR and Germany.

Though considered to have been printed in an edition of around 100, the number of extant copies is likely significantly less owing to the fact that some copies were probably destroyed in reaction to Malevich's work being regarded as subversive and that many unsold copies were lost during the destruction of Vitebsk in 1941. Karshan 50, 51, 62 and 63.

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Condition: All items are offered for sale subject to Swann Galleries' standard terms and conditions of sale, which are published in our catalogues.