Ivan Vasilyevich Klyun

Ivan Vasilyevich Klyun (born Aug. 20, [Sept. 1, New Style], 1873, Bolshiye Gorki village, Vladimir province, Russia—died Dec. 13, 1943, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) was a Russian artist and art theorist who was noted for his association with Russian Suprematist Kazimir Malevich and for his formulation of a theory of colour in painting.

Klyun was born into a peasant family. As a young man he studied drawing on his own accord while he earned a living as a bookkeeper. From 1902 to 1907 he attended the studio of Fyodor Rerberg in Moscow, where he became friends with Malevich. During these years he also attended an artist’s studio and took classes in Anatoly Bolshakov’s art school. From 1908 to 1911 Klyun’s work was influenced by the Lithuanian Symbolist painter Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, and he was drawn to Art Nouveau. In 1913 he turned to Cubism, and some of his best Cubist work dates from 1914–15: Gramophone and Ozonator (both 1914) and the relief Landscape Rushing By (1915). Between 1913 and 1917, he participated in most of the important avant-garde exhibitions. A major landmark for Klyun was the “0,10” exhibition in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) during the winter of 1915–16, where he exhibited Cubist and nonobjective sculpture (including Cubist at Her Dressing Table, 1915, presumed destroyed). Influenced by Malevich, Klyun in 1916 created his first Suprematist compositions, and in 1917 he created a series of one-, two-, and three-coloured Suprematist works. He became a member of Malevich’s Supremus Group (1916–17). After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Klyun worked in the IZO Narkompros (Department of Visual Arts of the People’s Commissariat of Education). From 1918 to 1921 he taught colour technique at the Higher State Art-Technical Studios (VKhUTEMAS). During this period he also worked on theoretical and practical research with colour at the Institute of Artistic Culture (1918–21) and at the Museum of Artistic Culture in Moscow (1921–25).

In the early 1920s, after working almost exclusively in a Suprematist style, Klyun began to create what he called “spherical nonobjective” compositions. In the second half of the 1920s, he was drawn to the work of Amédée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, and he became a follower of Purism, though his work in this style did not achieve the level of his earlier work.

Britannica Quiz

Can You Match These Lesser-Known Paintings to Their Artists?