Charlotte Hobson

‘A group of deranged idiots’ – how the Soviets saw the Avant-Gardists

First welcomed, then vilified, by Lenin, Russian artists such as Malevich, Tatlin, Kandinsky and Chagall would find their only real supporters in the West

‘Complex Premonition’, by Kazimir Malevich, 1928-32. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 08 June 2024

The Avant-Gardists tells the story of the small group of brilliant, punky outsider artists who, after the Bolshevik coup in 1917, to everyone’s amazement suddenly found themselves holding important posts in government (as if Sid Vicious were made minister of education). They were soon demoted, and by the end of the 1920s persecuted or driven abroad.

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