The Russian avant-gardes, with Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky as best-known representatives, are making a name for themselves with their radical artistic innovations. They also dedicate themselves to the design of interiors and theater sets, utensils and books. Surprisingly, the avant-garde also turned to the favorite material of the tsars: porcelain. Through this fragile white material we follow the rise and fall of the avant-garde. So much of it has been preserved that porcelain can tell the whole story of the Russian avant-garde like no other.

The former Imperial Porcelain Factory in Saint Petersburg becomes a breeding ground for avant-garde artists. They design new shapes and paint old stocks of plates and bowls with their revolutionary visual language. Influenced by Suprematism, the movement of which Malevich was the founder, mainly geometric figures such as the square, the circle and the rectangle were depicted, with primary colors, white and black. The parallels between the work of the Russian avant-garde and the Dutch artists of De Stijl, founded by Theo van Doesburg, are clear. For Malevich, Van Doesburg and Mondriaan, abstract art was the new direction for the future. The only question is for how long. Because radical art is encountering more and more opposition. Abstraction and experimentation give way to socialist realism, in which the propaganda of the utopian state is paramount. Russian avant-garde | Revolution in art is the book accompanying the eponymous and long-awaited exhibition in the Hermitage Amsterdam, which could be seen for a very short periode in January 2022.

The book tells one of the most fascinating stories about Russian avant-garde art, from its emergence in the final years of Imperial Russia, through the Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent period of fervent experimentation, to its demise under Stalin. A revolution in art! The Russian avant-garde – most famously, Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky – made their names by their radical artistic innovations and gained worldwide recognition as pioneers in the field. Strangely enough, however, they also threw themselves into the design of porcelain: a material previously heavily favoured by the tsars.

It is via this porcelain that we trace the rise and fall of the Russian avant-garde. The former Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg became a rallying point for avantgarde artists. They designed new shapes for porcelain and painted existing stocks of blanks with designs in a revolutionary new visual idiom. But their radical art encountered increasing opposition. Abstraction and experimentation gave way to Socialist Realism, dominated by propaganda for the Communist utopia.