The Russian literary scholar Nikolai Khardzhiev (1903- 1996) was a friend and admirer of the modern painters of his time. He collected work by masters such as Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov, Olga Rozanova, El Lissitzky, Vasiliy Chekrygin, Mikhail Matyushin and Vladimir Tatlin, compiling an extensive collection of Russian avant-garde art beginning at the end of the 1920s. The Russian Avant-Garde provides a full overview of the unique Khardziev-Chaga collection, housed at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam since 1997.

The collection contains numerous works on paper, including gouaches, watercolours, futurist book cover designs, sketches and studies. These items deepen understanding of the work of these Russian avant-garde artists. This part of this important collection has been reproduced and written about here for the first time.